The Foundling
by Connie Nervegas
Summary: The boys find a baby in a sewer tunnel and search for its parents and the reason it was dropped on their doorstep.
1. Number 4

**#4**

_My sister came up with this whole story and she pretty much came up with the whole plot for me. Can't say anymore without giving it away._

"Maybe he's hungry," Mikey said, peering into the basket at their new houseguest.

"He smells too." Leo was frantically searching baby care websites to figure out how to prepare a bottle. The fact that the baby was emitting toxic fumes was rather obvious to all present and didn't need iterating. "We need baby formula. Sensei, what did you feed us when we were babies. I'm sure you didn't have formula."

Splinter lifted the baby turtle out of the dirty basket and looked inside its diaper. The green infant waved its little arms and legs happily, glad to be out of its wicker prison. "It must be changed. Call April and ask her for diapers."

"Wait!" Mikey said, running for a pad and paper. "We need to make a list first."

Raph and Don were hiding from the terrifying creature in the lab, both trying to find something to do so that they looked occupied. Raph yelled out to them, "Before we make that brat comfortable, maybe we should have a convo about its origins and stuff. Like, where did Mikey find this thing again?"

Mikey was writing and muttering to himself, "Diapers, bottles, formula…"

"…A new basket for him to sleep in because this one is contaminated. A car seat. A thing to carry it in…" Leo added from the computer.

"Whoa!" Don charged out of the lab with his hands in the air, as if trying to stop a buffalo stampede. "We are not keeping that thing. We don't know who it belongs to. We don't know its intentions…"

Master Splinter bounced the baby and patted its shell as it fussed. "Intentions? It is an infant, Donatello. I understand your wariness of babies, but that is a rather unreasonable argument."

Raph leaned in the doorway, smirking with his arms crossed. "I think we all know what happened. One of us got laid. And I just want to know who it was so I can kick their ass for not telling me about it."

"Hey, don't look at me," Don said as he looked over Leo's shoulder at the baby websites. There was a picture of a breast pump on the screen and Don eagerly pointed at it, indicating that it should be put on the list. "Maybe April could nurse it."

Leo said, in a rather embarrassed tone, "I don't think it works that way."

"What about you, Fearless?" Raph asked. "It was you, wasn't it? You rescued some girl and couldn't resist when she wanted to thank you."

Leo was navigating away from the breast pump page, since Don was trying to persuade him to buy one so that he could take it apart. "They're expensive, Don. And I don't think my sex life is any of your business. And whether or not I have one at all is up to you to guess."

Mikey was googooing at the baby and said, "I think we have a winner, baby. How about a stroller?"

Raph rolled his eyes and tentatively approached Splinter and the baby. "Why? So we can roll it around the sewers. I think we need a baby sized canoe. And here's a better question. Some stranger just dumps a baby turtle on our doorstep and we just go, 'Oh, does this crib go with this stroller?' Aren't we going to give the kid back to its mother? I mean, Fearless. You must know who you knocked up."

Leo's eyes narrowed, but he successfully ignored Raph's provocations.

"Can I hold him?" Mikey asked.

Splinter passed the baby to Mike.

"I don't know why people want babies so badly," Don said. "All they do is cry and stink."

Mikey held the baby in front of him so that he could make faces at it. The baby giggled and smiled. "Aw, look! He's a happy little guy. Well, you cry and stink and we still keep you."

Leo called April and motioned for silence as she picked up. He said, "Good morning, April. How did you sleep? Nothing's wrong. Can't I be polite to my favorite pretend sister? Well, something rather important has happened and we thought we should tell you. We found a baby turtle in the tunnels. No, not a pet shop turtle. A… baby turtle." He held the phone away from his ear and they could all hear a girly shriek of excitement. "It's a boy, I guess. Because we didn't check."

Mikey peeked inside its diaper and furrowed his eyebrows. Raph took the baby away and said, "Sorry to break it to you, but this baby's a girl."

"A girl!" Don said, with absolute horror. Raph handed the baby back to Mikey as soon as he could manage it.

Leo continued, "Whose is it? What do you mean? Well, we're not entirely sure. It was in a basket with a note that said, 'I'm returning what rightfully belongs to you. Its name is #4.' Mikey's? Yeah, he is #4 amongst us."

Splinter turned on Mikey, looking for an explanation. "Hey, I had nothing to do with this. I don't think I did anyway. I mean, if I was unconscious or mind controlled I wouldn't know. Wouldn't that be awful? The only time you get to have sex and you're being remotely controlled and don't remember a thing? I didn't think we could knock up human girls, anyway. So how come we all think one of us made this baby. Maybe somebody else made it and their mistaken. And I have blue eyes and baby's eyes are brown." Mikey pointed at the baby's huge dark eyes.

Don asked, "What if one of your parents or the mother had dark eyes? And babies' eyes change color as they get older. Well, human babies. They always start out with blue eyes. That's what Scarlet O'Hara said anyway."

Mikey shrugged. "Doesn't matter. It's not mine."

"Yeah, I know that's a lot of stuff. We're good for it." Leo looked significantly at Raph.

Raph said, "No way. I'm not spending my money on this brat. It's yours. You pay for it."

"Thanks, April." Leo hung up. "What would we do without her?"

"Let's give her a bath!" Mikey said.

Leo said, "I think April knows how to bathe herself. I know we're close and all…"

"The baby, pervert." Mikey smelled the baby and wrinkled up his nose.

Leo turned to the computer screen to hide his blush.

Don's face was screwed up like he'd eaten a lemon. "That a good idea? It's a girl and all. Might not be appropriate to bathe somebody else's girl baby."

Raph inspected it and said, "It's an ugly baby. It's ugly enough to be yours, Mike."

"Oh, yeah!" Mikey said, turning the baby away from Raph to shield her from his rudeness. "Maybe it's yours. We didn't consider that yet."

Raph laughed loudly. "I think I'd remember getting laid. And my kid would be much better looking." Raph rubbed the baby's head and said in a silly voice, "You're a fugly one, aren't you?"

Mikey said to the baby, "Don't pay any attention to Raphie. He's just a born meanie."

Splinter took the baby from Mikey and said, "This baby must stay with us until we find out where it came from. I raised you four and so I think I know a thing or two about taking care of baby turtles. I will consider what, if any, protection our family will give to this child if she is not one of yours. And if she is one of your biological children, I expect a confession, the circumstance of the child's conception and birth, and that party will be given full responsibility as the father of this child. Am I understood?"

There was a collective utterance of reluctant acceptance of the terms.

Don broke the uncomfortable silence by saying, "Put air fresheners on the list. I don't want baby smell in the lab."


	2. Mary Sewage

**Mary Sewage**

_I do that same thing with the bottle nipple every time, without fail. I just saw a banner at the bottom of the first chapter of The Foundling that reads "Pregnant? Considering adoption?" Perfect or what? Yes, they do sell paternity tests at the supermarket. Go check for yourself. For the record. Third person distant is hard._

The next day, the silence of the lair was broken by feminine squealing, punctuated by a baby's cry.

April trotted into the lair, burdened by many pastel shopping bags. She dumped them on the floor near the front door and ran straight to the baby. Leo was sitting on the couch, trying to tip milk into her mouth with a cup. She was also wearing an old pillowcase tied around her bottom as a makeshift diaper.

"Look at the baby!" she said, clapping her hands together and gushing like a little girl who had just found out she'll get a pony.

Leo asked, "Did you get formula and bottles because this method isn't working and cow's milk isn't good for her."

April ran back to fetch the bags. She dumped them next to the couch and said, "I have all kinds of goodies in the van. I went to Target and Wal-Mart and Goodwill and I got a basinet and some really cute sleepers, but now I wonder how she'll wear them with the shell and everything. Oh, can I hold her? Isn't she adorable? And she's a girl! What are we going to call her?"

"Gone," Raph muttered drowsily as he made his way blindly into the kitchen from his bedroom. "That fucking brat cried all night."

"Oh, she's just hungry," April said as Leo handed the baby to her and April smiled like her face would stick that way. "You're such a happy little girl. Look at those brown eyes."

April sat on the couch next to Leo and they both leered at her, making cute faces.

"You guys are making me sick," Raph said, loudly throwing a tea kettle on the stove.

Leo stood up and stretched. "Well, my shift is over. I'll get Mikey and then hit the sack. And then get in my bed and go to sleep."

"Har, har, har," Raph muttered.

Mikey vaulted across the room and explored the bags of baby merchandise. He pulled out a Winnie the Pooh receiving blanket. He held it up and said, "Butch, isn't this the cutest thing you've ever seen?"

Raph sat next to April, munching some toast and looked over at the infant, who smiled at him and waved her arms. "Don't get too excited, kid. You're only temporary. And that happy shiny crap doesn't work with me." But he held out his hand and let her hold his finger. "Can she have toast?"

April pulled her away from the brute. "She doesn't have teeth, Raph."

Mikey pulled out a bottle and some formula and went to the kitchen to figure out how to make up a bottle.

"What's all this noise?" Don said, emerging from the lab. A strange, acrid smell wafted after him. But strange smells usually wafted from the lab, so nobody noticed.

"It's babytopia," Mikey said. "Who knew making a bottle was so complicated." He shook the bottle and water sprayed out of the unblocked nipple opening. "Oops."

Raph climbed over the bags of baby stuff and headed towards the dojo.

"Go get the rest of the stuff out of the van!" April commanded.

He obediently amended his course and left the lair.

"Wait! Come and get the keys!"

Raph came back in the door and waited while April awkwardly fetched her car keys out of her jeans pocket and balanced the baby on her lap at the same time. "And bring in the bag with the Pepsi," she said. "You'll need to make a few trips."

"Yes, master." He headed back out the door.

It was quiet for a while as April marveled at the baby turtle and Mikey fumbled with the bottle, spilling it several times before getting it prepared.

"Isn't she perfect?" April said dreamily. "I wonder where she came from. Who could leave a cutie like this alone in a sewer tunnel?"

Mikey handed the bottle to April and watched as she stuck it in her mouth. The baby eagerly sucked and drooled all over. He said, "I don't know. I hope it doesn't belong to any of my brothers. Because, you know. Awkward."

"Any suspects?" April whispered to him.

Mikey looked around to make sure he wasn't overheard. "Well, mainly Leo. He's not denying or confirming and that seems awfully suspicious to me. But Raph… he's not exactly an open book. More like a steel box with a big padlock. I can't see Don knocking anybody up and keeping quiet about it. True, he hates babies but he would probably claim it so he could run tests on it and teach it to be Master of the Universe."

"What about you?"

"Me? Ah, I didn't do anything like that. Sure, I like babies, but I don't want to raise one. I'm sixteen." He tickled the baby and both giggled. "Plus, I'm smart enough to know where they come from, even if these jokers don't. It's like Raphie always says. 'The safest sex is with your own hand.'"

April gagged and handed the baby to Mikey. She made a weak fuss and Mikey said, in an instant panic, "What's wrong, baby? I'm sorry. I won't say nasty stuff anymore if it offends you."

Master Splinter swooped in and contented her with his magical baby powers.

"How do you do that?" Mikey asked him in awe as he bounced her in his arms.

Splinter smirked and flicked his whiskers, "I raised four of you at once. I know every secret there is about raising baby turtles." He handed the baby back to Mikey and she fussed again. Mikey tried to imitate Splinter's bouncing motion, but wasn't very successful.

Raph lumbered back into the lair with a box under each arm and a plastic bag full of grocery items looped in his arm. "DON, GET OUT HERE AND HELP ME!"

The baby screamed. April said, "Look in the plastic bag. That's where I put the DNA tests."

Don came out of the lab wearing rubber gloves and took the basinet and bouncer boxes from Raph. He pulled a box cutter seemingly out of nowhere and ripped the boxes open, ecstatic at the opportunity to destroy something new. Raph rummaged through the bag and pulled out four small boxes. "You bought the DNA tests at the grocery store?" he asked.

"Yeah, well," April said, taking them from him. "They're cheap. I'm going to develop them in the NYU lab myself, so it'll only take about two days. I can't get open lab time until then."

"Yeah, save the $120 lab fee," Don said as he pulled out the basinet instructions and tossed them aside without looking at them.

"Cheapskate," Mikey said.

Don pulled open a bag of screws and sent them flying in all directions. Raph bellowed as he stepped on one on his way to the kitchen. "Well, I think they'd get awful suspicious if they got a test with turtle DNA. They'd probably just send it back and say it was contaminated or that they don't do animal testing. April, I'm really looking forward to the results. It'll be really cool to see what the mother is. If she has 22 chromosomes like us, then she's a turtle. If she has 23, then she's a human. If she has 24 then the mother could be some other kind of primate."

Mikey said to the baby, "I don't think your mommy was a lemur. Or was she? Could explain why your eyes are so big."

"She's probably yours," Raph insisted, headed back towards the front door. "You had huge eyeballs. Remember."

Splinter called to him, "Have you held the baby yet, Raphael?"

"Held it?" He leaned backwards, away from them at the thought. "No. Don't plan to if I can help it. Don didn't hold it either."

"Don't make me touch that thing!" Don said, brandishing a mobile with fairies dangling from the top for protection.

Splinter motioned for Raph to come back in the room. "You will both hold the baby. Raphael, sit down. You are next, Donatello."

Don threw the mobile to the ground in despair.

"I'll get the rest of the stuff," Mikey said. He got up with the baby and clumsily traded her to Raph for the car keys and then left, maniacal laughter echoing down the sewer tunnel behind him.

April repressed laughter as she watched Raph holding the baby at arm's length and staring around at them all. Master Splinter didn't seem so amused and said, "Hold her properly, Raphael. Support her head."

He gathered her in his arms, looking like a Mastiff holding a tiny kitten. "There. I'm holding it. Everybody happy. How long do I have to do this?"

Master Splinter sighed and retrieved the baby from its apathetic caretaker. Raph disappeared into the dojo. Next, he motioned to Don, who adamantly shook his head, eyes wide with fear.

"Blast it all, Donatello! It is a baby! It will not hurt you! Now sit down on this couch and hold her!"

April's eyes widened in surprise at Splinter's tone. Don scurried to the couch, more afraid of his father than the baby. Splinter lowered the baby into his arms and Don said, "Ew! She's warm and squirmy like a slug!"

"Slugs are warm?" April asked curiously.

"Maybe." The baby laughed and kicked.

April leaned in closer to Don and said, "Just breathe, Don."

He let out a shaky breath and said, "I guess it isn't too bad." The baby fussed and he said, "Oh, no! She's crying! Take her! Take her!"

Splinter laughed and gathered the baby in his arms. Within five minutes he had changed her diaper, fed and burped her and had her lying in his lap, peacefully asleep.

"Now that she's asleep," April said, removing a test kit from the packaging. "We should take her DNA samples. I need four from her. Each kit has a daddy and baby test slip. There's one for mommy too but…"

"You should take it," Don said, shaking out his arms to expel the baby's unwanted heat.

"Why?"

"I don't know."

"I think I'll pass." She pulled out the four test strips and swabbed inside of the baby's mouth as she slept. She wrote on the labels to identify the potential father's name. Don fetched Ziploc bags from the kitchen and a marker.

"Now for potential father #1," April said, holding out a swab for Don.

"This feels so wrong," he said as he swabbed the inside of his mouth and dropped it into the bag marked with his name.

"Raph, come here!" April yelled into the dojo.

There was a loud thud as a weight hit the floor. The baby cried again.

"What?" Raph asked. He raised his eyebrow ridges at the DNA test and then sat next to April with his mouth open.

She swabbed the inside of his mouth and said, "You're so helpless that I had to do it for you?"

"Thought it would make you feel needed," he said. He disappeared back into the dojo.

She crept into Leo's room and sat next to his bed. He mumbled, "Not now. I've got a headache."

"Sorry, stud. But I need to swab your cheek for the paternity test."

He didn't respond immediately and sat up. "I'd rather not."

Awkward silence filled the dark little room as they both waited for the other to speak first. Finally, April said, "Why would you rather not?"

"I already know what the results of my test would be and I don't think it's necessary to take it. I have nothing to prove."

April's face was going red. Out of anger, not embarrassment. "Well, your brothers are sure and they took the test. Sounds like you're wimping out. Or you have something to hide."

He rolled over in bed and said, "Goodnight, April. Or good morning or whatever time it is."

April left his bedroom, being sure to slam the door loudly. He gave a muffled groan as the door shut on him. "Well, I have three samples," she said to Master Splinter. "Leo wouldn't cooperate. So I guess he's the baby daddy. There's no reason to even do the stupid tests and I wasted how much money on these? Thirty dollars each. And he made me and Raph pay for all the baby things. What's with him? I'm seriously thinking of not even doing the tests. We should just wait him out until he confesses."

"Hear, hear!" Mikey said. "Wait. You didn't swab me yet."

She pulled out a swab and forcefully jabbed it into his mouth. "You'd think Fearless would take some responsibility for his actions and I don't know why he's so reluctant anyway. He likes the baby. Who wouldn't?"

Don raised a hand from the half assembled bouncer. Raph yelled, "Me!" from the dojo in between kata moves.

"April…" Master Splinter said.

"And who would sleep with him anyway?"

Mikey nearly gagged on his test strip.

"Bet it was some doe eyed teenage girl walking down a dark alley at night, getting herself mugged. And then she's all swept off her feet by his flirty lines and sexy voice and all that shit and she asks him to come back to her house for tea and her parents are all dead and she's so alone in the world and he's just a lonely warrior. Stop making that awful face, Mike. Stupid teenage girls. Stupid horny teenage boys."

"April…"

Mikey gagged, "Yah chokin' meh…"

She pulled the test strip out of his mouth. "What kind of a girl did he get mixed up with if she leaves his kid in a sewer tunnel all night? And she named her #4? What the hell is that about? I bet she had quads and just dropped them around the tunnels for him to find. Like an Easter egg hunt."

"April, do the tests," Splinter said simply. "We cannot lay blame at Leonardo's feet. He may feel uncomfortable with the idea of biological testing to determine parentage. See, they are all adopted."

She threw Mikey's test strip in a Ziploc and said, "Oh, I didn't think of that. Sorry."

April left after she had gathered the test strips and had a final fit of baby joy. A sketchy profile of the mother had sprung up amongst Leo's brothers. She was obviously desperate if she was getting it from Leo. Probably really depressed. He liked depressed women with tragic pasts. Why they knew that wasn't certain. Don's version of Leo's girlfriend was quite similar to a 1950's housewife. Baking pies and fixing his wounds. A blond pixie, flitting around her house, cooking dinner for him and listening to him philosophize about the nature of leadership and its burdens. That would be an upside because none of them liked to listen to it. Raph made it sound like she was a desperate emochick looking for one last ride on the despair train before she carved his name on her chest and bled to death and so she had to leave the baby in the tunnels first. Don suggested that this was Raph's ideal woman and that he was projecting his own desires onto Leo. Mikey thought he'd probably found a girl who was a master ninja and they had trained together in secret. Leo was Ninja Girl's sensei and the master-student relationship had changed over time as he watched her twisting suggestively in her skintight leotard. Master Splinter told them to all shut their mouths and get into the dojo for training.

The baby was moved to the dojo and burbled to herself as she bounced and watched her fellow turtles fighting each other, making up more and more wild origin stories about her.


	3. Who's Your Daddy?

**Who's Your Daddy?**

_Some of these idle discussion topics were my sister's idea. Including Casey's squash idea. Not staying in third distant after this chapter. Didn't stick to it too faithfully here anyway. Makes it too thin and perfunctory. I know I make Casey out to be a pretty exaggerated coward, but I honestly don't like the guy._

Casey Jones never thought he'd ever see anything as frightening as this and he'd seen some pretty horrifying things. He'd broken necks with golf clubs. He'd felt the blood of criminals in his hands. But nothing made his hair stand on end like this. He watched as the unnatural beast devoured its meal, drool running down its face.

"Leo, why are you staring at her like that?" Don asked as he knelt next to Leo, who was sitting on the other end of the couch from Casey, feeding the baby a bottle. One of Casey's hands was unconsciously reaching for his golf bag. "You're probably scaring her."

"Nah," Mikey said, from the kitchen where he was stacking baby bottles into an epic pyramid on the kitchen table. "They're mind melding."

"Looks like you're trying to hypnotize her," Casey said, leaning away from them.

Leo bent closer to the baby and bulged out his eyes dramatically.

"You will never cry again," Mikey intoned as the bottle pyramid collapsed and sent nipples flying all over the room.

Raph said from the bathroom, "You can read that thing's mind? What's it thinking?"

He thought for a second and then held his ear to her head, pretending to listen to unheard words. "She's saying, 'Food… food… food…'"

"I know what she's saying," Don said as he fiddled with one of her little feet. His fear of her had evaporated overnight. "These morons. Little do they know that I will take over the world!"

"Yeah!" Raph said enthusiastically. "I bet she's thinking, 'These guys are so stupid. They feed me and wipe my ass. These losers.'"

Casey said, "She's thinking, 'Boy, this dude's ugly.'"

There was a small plastic crash as Mikey's pyramid of bottles collapsed again. "Yeah, 'I hope I'm not related to that douche bag.'"

April ran into the lair and went straight to the baby. Don held his arms out dramatically, as if expecting a hug, and then stumbled away brokenhearted when she passed him by without an acknowledgement. She pulled three envelopes out of her purse. "I got the results! I didn't look at them. I didn't want to look too sad when I got here or disappointed in anybody and give the game away."

Raph emerged from the bathroom rubbing his hands dry on his plastron and grabbed his envelope. "Let's get this over with." He tore the envelope open.

"Wait!" Mikey said. He grabbed his own envelope. "Let's steam them open. I've always wanted to do that."

Master Splinter snatched all three of the envelopes. "I would like to have a look at these first, if you don't mind."

"Hey, we do too mind," Don said as he watched his envelope slip into his father's pocket and disappear with him into the dojo.

Mikey and Raph entertained themselves by juggling bottle nipples while their father read their fates. Don rewired a bomb detonator and hummed "Rock-a-Bye Baby."

"Think you could give it to a zoo?" Casey asked Leo. The baby was slumped over Leo's shoulder, drooling on his shell.

"Why?" Leo looked like he was holding back a lecture. Sometimes they were involuntary, like a sneeze. "We are not common animals. We're sentient beings. This baby needs care and love and…"

"Hey, Raphie… hey, Raphie… hey, Raphie…" Mikey stuttered as his excitement to entertain Raph temporarily short circuited his brain. Raph held a fist in his face to indicate that the joke had better be good or he would be punched for the prefacing annoyance. "What do you think it would look like if she grew up in a zoo? She'd be… like… a full grown turtle standing at the bars of her cage, right…" He nearly couldn't continue because he was laughing so hard. "And she would be… like… bumming smokes through the bars from the zoo visitors and stuff…"

Raph laughed and Mikey didn't get punched.

"Why would she smoke?" Don asked vaguely. He dulled the boredom of waiting by balancing the detonator on his head.

"It's too ugly to give up for adoption," Casey kindly pointed out. "Look at it. What human would adopt that? It looks like a squash with legs."

April sat on Casey's lap playfully and said, "I think she's adorable. I like ugly things, you know. Like you."

Everyone averted their eyes rather conspicuously as they smooched. "Wouldn't it be hard to raise a green baby with a shell? They'd probably notice when she went to school," Leo said, addressing the ceiling.

"Babies are babies," April said, taking her from Leo and making faces that could rival the baby's in adorable factor. "And I guess she'd have to stay secret. Home schooled like you guys or something."

"Hey, wait a minute…" Casey said as he slowly realized that this course of action would drastically alter his future.

"Well, it depends on if the baby belongs to any of us," Don said. "Leo wouldn't want anybody to raise his kid."

Leo shrugged noncommittally. "I didn't think about it. No point. What about you, Don. I know you hate babies."

He straightened up in offense and the detonator fell off his head. "I don't hate them. I'm afraid of them. They don't look right. Like little aliens. I'd probably raise my own kid. No other choice right."

"I don't want kids," Raph said simply as he swung one of Casey's golf clubs in the air and did a kata as if it were a bo staff. "I think it would keep me indoors too much."

Mikey waited a second before answering. "I really like kids, but I don't really want any of my own just yet. I'm a kid myself. Well, not really. But I'm not an adult either. But I'd gladly raise her if she were mine. How could I not?"

* * *

A few minutes later all four of the Hamato sons sat respectfully at their Sensei's feet. He stood before them, whiskers drooping and they all knew that there was either a positive declaration of paternity in one of those envelopes or else a declaration of paternity through omission. The three tested parties showed their anticipation by trying to make each other laugh out of turn. The fourth party was inscrutable.

Finally, Master Splinter handed out the named envelopes. Mikey tore open his envelope, ripping his page in half in his haste and said, "Hey, 100%. I passed."

Don looked his page over and said with no surprise, "Yeah, me too."

Raph threw his test results aside and said, "Yeah, 100% is passing? That's good."

April collected them off the ground as the three exonerated parties turned to leave the dojo. Leo sat in same place, hanging his head a little lower, but fighting off a smile. But then her eyes opened wide and she said, "Wait! Come back here, guys! Raph, you said you have a 100%?"

He turned to her and shrugged. "Yeah, 99.99%. Close enough."

She threw down the three pages. April said, "Those 100%'s mean that they are excluded by a probability of 100%. You have a probability of 99.99% as the father. You're the father of the baby."

He laughed and said, "No way. Is this some kind of joke? Thought you'd make me all scared that I'm a teen parent?"

She shook her head and handed him the paper.

"This looks like gibberish."

Don snatched it out of his hand and gasped like an asthmatic. "Raph, you're the father of that kid."

"What?" he said absently as if his brain had stopped processing English.

Don pointed at the baby and said, "Raph, your semen made that."

"Well, the test is probably defective or else you did it wrong," Raph said.

April was offended that he would question her lab skills. "I didn't do anything wrong. What did you do? Or who did you do, I mean?"

"Nobody!" Raph took a few steps away from them as if they were all physically advancing on him. He turned to Leo who was looking in the opposite direction and still hadn't moved. "I'm a virgin in every meaning of the word and it's against my will. I'd be screwing every girl I could, if it was possible. This is some kind of trick!"

Master Splinter asked, "Why would we trick you in such a cruel fashion?"

Casey gave him a thumbs up from behind Splinter's back.

"I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING! IT ISN'T MINE! I DON'T WANT IT! TAKE IT BACK WHERE IT CAME FROM!"

Leo jumped to his feet in an impressive gesture, drawing everyone's attention, and said, "We don't know where it came from. You are the only one who knows that."

"YOU LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE!" Raph headed towards the front door and passed Mikey, who had picked up the baby in an attempt to hand her off to the new daddy and mellow him somehow. "GET THAT THING AWAY FROM ME!"

The baby wailed, frightened by the shouting. Mikey cuddled her and said, "Don't worry. It's not your fault that your daddy is so awful."

Everyone in the dojo stared at each other in silence. April rattled the test results as she compulsively reread them over and over. Eventually, Don said, "Well, that was the absolute worst possible outcome."

Leo couldn't resist an outburst and cried, "Why does Raph get a baby! How does he deserve this?"

"It doesn't go by who deserves it, Leo," Casey said. "Raph… uh… made it and so it's his."

Splinter took the paternity test results from April and said, "I will find out how this happened. Do not question him for now. It may only cause him to close off even more."

"What if he's telling the truth?" April asked, stunned and staring at the wall. "Because… you know… weird and creepy."

Leo stormed out of the room and they could hear his bedroom door slam.

Mikey sat on the floor next to Don and bounced the baby on his knee. "This is gross. Well, the baby isn't gross, but knowing that Raph got somebody or something pregnant is gross." He shuddered with disgust.

* * *

Later that night, Raph crept in the front door. He hadn't gone topside to crack Purple Dragon heads open like he'd planned. All he'd done was wander aimlessly in the tunnels, stopping once and awhile to curse Leo and his sanctimonious suspicion and whatever sicko had made off with his sperm without his consent. The lair was quiet and dark. He found April asleep sitting up in an armchair with her mouth hanging open. There was no sign of a baby and he silently opened his bedroom door, hoping to crawl into bed and block out the previous day. But he knew that he wasn't alone as soon as he cracked the door open.

There was Fearless, sitting on Raph's bed with the baby in his arms. Mikey wasn't in his bed on the other side of the room. "I believe I have something that belongs to you," Leo said.

Raph took half a step backwards, to demonstrate his willingness to leave again.

"Oh, just sit down," Leo said wearily, motioning to the other bed.

He sat on the bed and looked at the floor, trying hard not to look at the infant.

"What happened?" Leo said. "Don't worry. I won't judge."

"I said before," he growled warningly. "I didn't do anything. Well, nothing that would get me one of those. I don't know how it happened."

Leo sighed. "If you're protecting someone…"

"Can't you hear? There's nobody to protect!" His voice rose and the baby stirred in her sleep.

Leo shushed the baby and said, "Don't you want to hold your daughter?"

Raph cringed at the word and shook his head. "Where did that thing come from anyway?"

"This thing is your child," Leo said growing impatient. "Take her. I need to sleep."

He didn't move and decided to wait him out. Leo didn't like uncomfortable silence and would give up eventually.

"Well, she'll be in the other room with me and Mikey if you want her," he said, being sure to punctuate his disappointment thoroughly as he left the room.

Raph sighed with relief. He felt nauseous when he was around the baby, like it was a terrifying thing that he needed to escape. He lay on his bed, trying to block out the day and pretend everything was normal and plan a normal day for tomorrow. He'd work out. Lift weights. Play Halo. The test was wrong. It had to be. April must have done it wrong. It wasn't even possible. It was just his luck. He hadn't done anything for once and he was the one being punished. His brain swirled endless impossible theories of her existence until he fell asleep and dreamed that Leo had snuck into his bedroom, taken his sais, and carried them off into the next bedroom.


	4. Like Her Old Man

**Like Her Old Man**

_I don't have any kids, but it seems to me that it would be a rather uncomfortable to mirror to look into._

Raph had been sure to spend as little time in the lair as possible over the next three days. He spent a full day and half pacing Casey's apartment, protesting his innocence. Every time he declared himself to be blameless of any sexual behavior, Casey would say, "You'll have to tell me what happened sometime."

He finally couldn't stand it and left. Leo may be a sanctimonious know-it-all with a martyr complex, but at least he was more intelligent than a grapefruit. And if he didn't believe him, he at least had the decency to pretend that he did to his face.

Raph spent the next day and a half roaming the streets of New York, looking for guys to knock out or preferably kill. But he couldn't find any guys who wanted to kill him for once. They were always out of town on Purple Dragon retreats and Sabbaticals when he needed to kill them. Even Purple Dragons and foot ninjas were letting him down nowadays.

He saw babies everywhere he went. The city was plagued with them. He didn't understand it. Why were people walking around in the cold fall air with their babies? Shouldn't they all be at home? Maybe he never had a reason to notice before and the plague of babies had always existed. He felt like he was being chased by the same Bethany Christian Services billboard everywhere he went. If only the kid was human. Then he could give it up for adoption.

The trip back to the lair was slow and he kept taking alternative routes, trying to think of something important to do. But he had nothing going on and no life to speak of and so eventually he wandered back to the lair. It would be nice to see Master Splinter anyway. Maybe he would have some advice. Maybe the baby had disappeared in his absence. He could only hope.

He couldn't help feeling sorry for it though. Totally alone and unwanted. By him anyway. Its only known parent. He shuddered every time a word like parent, father, child or daughter entered him mind. He was a father. How the hell did that happen?

Raph hid near the kitchen, eavesdropping on his siblings. Leo, Don, Mikey and April were sitting around the kitchen table with the baby on the table in her car seat. It seemed that the baby was the new form of entertainment.

"Think she'll look like Raph?" Don asked.

Mikey said, "Crap, I hope not."

So Mikey thought he was ugly, huh? Raph wasn't a vain guy. He didn't look at his own reflection for days at a time. Who was there to see? He made sure that he didn't look repulsive when April was coming around, but nothing really beyond that. It had never occurred to him that others might have opinions on his looks or how those looks were reflected in his offspring. It was embarrassing.

"He's not ugly. You make him sound like the Hunchback of Notre Dame," Don said.

April said cautiously, "I don't think he's bad looking either. Not great looking."

Pause. Leo said, "See how she has that same funny bump on the top of her head that Raph has?"

"Yeah, I guess so. And those streaks on her cheeks. He has those funny lines there too. Really faint," Don said.

Raph decided that he didn't want to hear them ridiculing his looks vicariously through his daughter anymore and cleared his throat to announce his presence. "Sorry my kid isn't better looking than me. Hopefully, she looks like her mother. Whoever she is."

Awkward looks between the other four. Leo stood up like the ambassador of Spain and said, "Raph, I'm sure whoever she was, she was a great woman."

Raph stared at Leo, wondering if he was being serious. "Okay." He grabbed a beer out of the fridge and went to his room. He moved to shut the door, but realized that they would keep talking about him as soon as he left the room.

Sure enough, after about ten seconds, April said, "Why does he ignore the baby? It's so sad. He should be glad that he has a baby."

Raph crossed his arms. That was easy for her to say. He wasn't a twenty something year old woman with a baby obsession.

Mikey said, "Maybe he has postpartum depression."

"I'm not even honoring that with an explanation, Mike," Don said quietly.

Leo said, as if to himself, "Her eyes are like his though. Except darker. I mean they're shaped like his. It's so bizarre. She looks just like him. And she's cute. Weird."

Raph was beginning to wonder if he was really as ugly as they were making him out.

"Feet are really big," Don said. "Look at those big feet. Raph's feet are huge."

He looked down at his own feet. They were bigger than all three of his brothers. He laced his toes over each other to minimize their length.

Then Leo said, "I bet she'll be short until she's about twelve. Remember how short he was until he hit puberty?"

That was enough. Raph threw the bedroom door open and let it bang dramatically against the wall to announce his presence. The baby wailed. "Quit making fun of my baby! She's not ugly!"

"You said yourself that she's ugly," Mikey said. He picked the baby up and danced back and forth as he bounced her.

Raph sputtered for a second, trying to think of a rebuttal. "Of course I said she was ugly. I thought she was Leo's then."

Leo pursed up his face in offense.

"Oh, she isn't ugly," Don said. "We see you all the time and so all your little gross parts are really obvious to us and I guess they're easy for us to spot on her. But you're fairly good looking, I guess, and your baby is actually pretty. So shut up."

He had a fleeing urge to grab his kid and take it in the bedroom with him, but he didn't want to be alone with it.

Thankfully, Master Splinter left the dojo at that moment and demanded that Raph follow him into his bedroom where they could talk privately. There was a private meditation area with a few mats and incense in the corner and Splinter motioned for Raph to join him. These private meditation moments usually meant that he was about to be told off for excessive drinking, swearing, fighting or lewdness. Mostly for insubordination of some variety.

They sat on the mat and Master Splinter lit some incense. Raph wasn't pleased. He knew that his Sensei did it in an attempt to dull his senses and to get a more speedy confession out of him. Splinter said, "I do not want you to think that you need to hide anything from me, Raphael."

"I don't hide, Master Splinter."

He kept talking as if he hadn't heard him. "I know that you are facing a heavy burden and responsibility. You must not carry secrets and old hurt."

"I don't! I don't have any old girlfriends or tragic love story or skanks that I've fucked in alleys… oh… sorry." He hung his head and waited for a reproach.

Master Splinter only sighed at his vulgarity and said, "If you insist on your innocence, then this will be the last time that I ask and I will believe you. I am not suspicious. I only want to give you a chance to tell me anything that you feel you may need to hide."

Finally, he thought. And then, for some reason, he blurted out. "I've been thinking about it and there was this one time last year when I got knocked out when I was fighting foot ninjas. I woke up and… felt… kind of weird…" Why did he bring that up now? He didn't want to talk about it, and he suspected that the incense was wearing down his resistance.

"Weird? In what way, son?" Splinter's whiskers flared.

"Uh… it's kind of personal, sensei…" He waited for Splinter to excuse him from explaining himself, but the excuse never came. He took a deep breath and said, "Well, I woke up a few hours later and certain… areas… were kind of tender for a while… thought they'd kicked me in the 'nads or something. And then it burned and hung on for a few days." He wished he hadn't brought this up. He knew he was going red. Or purple or whatever color he turned when he blushed.

Master Splinter asked, "Why didn't you say anything?"

"I get all kinds of funny pains. I'm not a pussy. I don't have to tell every time I get hurt. And what would I say? 'Hey, Don. Come and look at my testicles?'"

"Language, Raphael. I wish that you had told me of this when it happened." Master Splinter pulled out a box from under his bed. "I would like to show you something."

It was a box with a few photographs inside. Master Splinter pulled out an old picture of two baby turtles propped up in an old armchair. "That is you and Donatello."

Raph looked at the picture. Don was screaming, but Raph was smiling. "Why's he screaming like that?"

"I believe that you bit him," Splinter said, his whiskers twitching as he suppressed a smile. "You bit your brothers quite often. Here is another picture. You are just a baby. I found a Polaroid camera in a dumpster and took pictures of my sons. Leonardo cried at the flash, I remember. But you thought it was funny. You were a happy baby."

Raph thought, "Yeah, if personality is inherited then she'll turn out a fuckup like her old man too." Instead, he said, "Hey, my eyes are really dark. So are Don's. Is that Mikey? His eyes are brown too."

"Yes," Splinter said. "You all had brown eyes until you were toddlers. When I saw your daughter the other day…" Raph cringed involuntarily. "…right away I knew that she was your child. You are almost identical. There are slight differences. But you are remarkably similar."

He decided not to talk anymore. Looking at the floor seemed like a better option.

"You have a blessing that you are happy to ignore."

"I don't want it!"

Splinter's wrath was incurred and he said loudly, "Well, you should be happy that I did not have such an attitude or you would have had no one and would have died! This child is your own blood and you do not care! I thought that I had set a better example and that one of my sons would be capable or even glad to raise a child of their own!"

He knew he'd get yelled at. He just knew it.

His father said, in a quieter tone, "I understand that you did not plan this and that you are young, but this responsibility has fallen to you and you must see it through."

"I don't intend for her to starve or anything," he said stubbornly. "I just don't see why I'm the one who needs to be the daddy. There are four others out there taking perfectly good care of it."

Master Splinter watched him for a second and then said, "Yes, about that." He jumped to his feet and Raph listened as he went into the kitchen and said to the baby's uncles and aunt, "I forbid you all from touching that child. If it is to be taken care of, then Raphael will do it."

He heard four voices say, "Yes, Sensei."

As if on cue, the baby fussed. Mikey called to him, "Raph, your baby wants you."


	5. Free to Good Home

**Free to Good Home**

_Sorry about the talk about the vital fluids. It kind of amused me. I'm amused by really bizarre stuff. I know Raph is tough. Please don't tell me so after this chapter. People act out of character sometimes. I'm sure you've done something out of character in your life. That's what makes you human and all._

Raphael Hamato spent his first day as a father trying to give away his baby.

He also spent much of the day wondering why someone had taken his sperm against his will. Wasn't his semen supposed to be sacred? He'd never thought he would spend so much time preoccupied by the idea. It wasn't exactly a substance that he spent much time contemplating.

Funny how that simple substance had turned into a baby.

And now he spent most of his days sobbing wildly. Raph never cried. That was an exaggeration. Rarely cried. Everybody cried. It was an involuntary function. But now father and daughter spent most of their time crying. Raph cried whenever the baby cried and the baby cried whenever he spoke to her or touched her. The lair was serenaded with a duet of sobbing all day.

"My baby hates me!" Raph wailed hopelessly at nobody in particular as he wandered the rooms with the baby in his arms, standing still occasionally to curse at one of his brothers for no reason, since he was unable to attack them to take out his frustration. He would have gladly left the baby alone and locked himself in his bedroom, but he knew his siblings were no longer there to take care of her.

Leo wasn't very understanding. "You're so loud. You're probably just scaring her. And I'd cry too if I found out I was going to be raised by you." Leo spent all his time in the dojo that day. He usually spent most of his time in the dojo. Now he spent all his time in the dojo.

Don was really put out and nobody saw him all day. He could only deal with the baby when she was quiet and happy. As soon as he heard any trace of distress in her voice, he immediately fled to the relatively soundproof safety of the lab. Since the baby had cried all day long, he'd spent the whole day in his hermitage.

But thankfully Mikey couldn't stand to see his brother pacing their bedroom with a screaming baby, crying because he thought his daughter hated him.

"You know what," Mikey said, hovering nearby and having a difficult time restraining himself from taking the hiccupping infant from Raph. "She probably can tell that you're anxious. Try to relax and see the positive."

"POSITIVE! WHAT POSITIVE! THIS BRAT RUINED MY LIFE!" His face was hot and completely wet with tears. He wiped his face with the back of his free hand. Mikey grimaced in disgust.

"Stop yelling like that," Mikey said, flapping his arms in midair as he tried not to take the baby away from Raph. "Do something soothing. Sing."

"No."

Mikey left the bedroom and abandoned Raph and the baby to their misery. Raph fell heavily on Mikey's bed, feeling like his life-force had been drained. He propped the baby against his legs, bounced her slightly and said, "Please, shut up. Yeah, I'd hate me too, if I was you."

Humming couldn't hurt, he thought as he balanced the screaming baby on his arm and shut the door. Raph didn't want Mikey to have the satisfaction of knowing that he had taken his advice.

He knew many songs, but only considered a handful worth singing. "I Walk the Line" was one of his favorites, but the lyrics felt too appropriate for a guy to sing to his daughter and he tried to think of a song that wasn't about love.

Damn, every song was about love. "Mr. Roboto" wasn't that bad, but he didn't know any lyrics besides, "Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto."

Being a parent was hard.

He finally sang a chorus from "Bohemian Rhapsody" in a choked, wet voice. The baby quieted down. Thankfully, he had a good singing voice. If Leo was singing, the baby would have died of horror. "So you liked that, huh?" he asked, wiping his nose on the corner of Mikey's bedspread. "I'll sing it for you sometime when my throat isn't full of snot."

Leo opened the door and didn't wait for an invitation as he sat next to him on the bed and tried to look in his face. Raph turned away. The best option would have been to punch Leo before he could get a word out, but he couldn't quite manage it with the baby on his lap.

In a polite voice Leo asked, "How've you been doing with the whole sudden parenthood thing?"

How did he think he was doing? He was crying like a hysterical girl and his baby was afraid of him. "I've been thinking about that," he said slowly. He'd planned a big speech with lots of logical argument. Instead he said, "Do you want my kid?"

"Want your…?" Leo leaned away from him slightly. "What do you mean?"

"You like her right? She likes you." It was such a depressing thought that his baby liked Leo better than him.

Leo had the same look that he used to have when Splinter caught him swiping cookies for all his brothers before dinner. "Yeah, of course…"

"Well, take her. She's yours. She wants you. Not me." Could he live trapped in a nursery with bars on the windows, watching his brothers going top side while he had to stay home with the baby, like a nanny? Could either of them? A baby didn't belong in their lives.

Leo watched the baby as she sadly fought off sleep and her eyes rolled in her head. "I… thought about it… but the chance has gone past."

Raph was too miserable to care about Leo's regrets and self-recrimination and wanted him to go away. He decided that silence would be the best way to encourage an exit.

Leo fiddled with one of his belt buckles and said, "Well, I had a plan and it went south… when you were named… never mind… forget it."

Raph stared at his baby, wondering if it was safe to move her or if she would wake up. He badly needed to work out. Exercise the poison out of his system.

Leo could never take a hint. "I was going to ask Splinter… well, no… I was going to lie. I was going to pretend she was mine and… you know… keep her. But you had to be the father and ruined it," Leo said with uncharacteristic petulance.

"Well, here she is. Take her. Don't let me stop you."

He scoffed. "Like that could ever work? Would you want to see your own daughter calling me Daddy?"  
Raph fought off slight nausea at the idea, but said, "I'd get used to it."

"No, you wouldn't. She's yours. It was wrong of me. I was going to pretend that I'd violated some of Splinter's most important rules and say that I'd fathered her in secret. Just so I could… I don't think I'll get another chance…" If there was anyone who could make a crushed man even more depressed, it was Leo. Knowing that his brothers could never father children of their own while he had a child he didn't want did wonders to improve his mood. Actually, it made him want to knock them all out. Either that or disappear top side for a few days until they'd all forgotten about it. But neither option was available at the moment.

But Leo did look really sad. He leaned over a little with that same Atlas posture that drove Raph crazy. So the world was a heavy responsibility on his shoulders and he must bare it alone and yadda, yadda, yadda. Sing him a different sad song. Raph thought he should say something supportive anyway. All he could manage was, "Stop bitching, you whiny pantywaist." He carefully laid the baby in her bassinet and left the bedroom, with as much aggressive swagger as a weeping ninja could muster.

* * *

Raph bundled up the baby in her car seat, hoping that she wouldn't suffocate on the way to April's apartment under the blanket. Raph's bloodshot eyes were swollen and sore and it made it extra difficult to travel in secret because the baby was crying in the car seat. He felt like he was losing his mind. He probably hadn't cried that much in his whole life. Finally, he knocked on April's window, holding the car seat in his other hand.

She eagerly opened the window and said, "You didn't need to wait. Just come in. Are you okay?"

He put the baby on the floor and said in one long pathetic wail, "I HATE THIS THING! I DON'T WANT IT ANYMORE! I DIDN'T WANT IT IN THE FIRST PLACE! I CAN'T DO THIS! IT HATES ME! PLEASE TAKE IT!"

"Oh, honey," she said, holding out her arms in an attempt to hug him.

He backed away and said, "Don't fucking touch me! Just make that thing shut up!"

She pulled the baby out of the car seat and bounced her in her arms. She was asleep in fifteen minutes. It was him. There was something fundamentally wrong with him that made his baby hate him.

Raph followed April into to her bedroom, where she laid the baby to sleep on her bed.

"Did you guys find out what Leo's been up to? Like, did you find his little black book with 'Baby Mama' circled?"

"He said he was going to pretend she was his, so I don't think there's a Mrs. Leo hiding anywhere. I tried to give the baby to him and he said no. Guess she isn't good enough for him now that she's mine."

"I'm sure that isn't it. And don't go around trying to give her away. It's not like the time you gave Leo your skateboard. Your baby is sort of always yours. Plus, did it occur to you that you and Leo don't need any new stuff to fight about?" April sat on the bed and sighed. "Poor baby."

Raph tried to laugh and said, "I know. She'd probably give herself up for adoption if she could."

She looked at him out of the corner of her eye and said, "I wasn't talking about her. I was talking about you. You're a baby yourself."

"I'm not a baby," he said, balling his hands into fists. He needed to find somebody to hit and fast before he did something stupid.

"You're sixteen. I know you're a killer ninja and all, but you're still a kid. And, by the way, you look awful." April rubbed the baby's little shell as she slept. "I still can't believe how cute she is."

Raph huffed angrily. "I wish everybody would stop being so shocked that I have a good looking kid. You all act like it's a miracle."

She giggled at him. "Well, for your information, I think you're super hot."

He watched as she sat with the baby, looking like the picture of maternal care. "You're real good with her." She smiled up at him. Why did she have to look so angelic? It made his perfectly rehearsed speech evaporate somewhere between his brain and his mouth. She was the only feminine influence in his life and she had the power to make him feel like a clutzy fool. He was glad that she didn't know that. Finally, he said, "You mentioned adopting her."

"Mmm, hmmm." She looked back down at the baby.

"So, what's stopping you? It's mine and I can do what I want with it and maybe you should have it."

She didn't answer for a long time. "I would like that."

Yes! At last! His life was back on track. Everything would be fine. The baby would have a decent parent and he could get back to his life.

"Master Splinter won't like it. He might not allow it."

At least twenty reasons to prevent the transfer of parentage popped into his brain, but he did what he usually did and ignored them and said, "It's mine and it'll be raised by whoever I want."

"I'll think about it."

But his jubilant mental celebration was clouded with doubt. How could a human raise a mutant child? His father had to raise them in a sewer to keep them safe. April's life would be so burdened. How could he ask her to do that for him?

It didn't matter. If she wanted the baby, then she should have it. Raph felt a little bit of the crippling anxiety slip away. Raph knew that neither expected it to happen, but the false hope was enough to keep him going for the time being.


	6. How to Raise a Baby Without Really Tryin

**How to Raise a Baby Without Really Trying**

_I don't know why I like putting them in the bathroom so much._

The baby stopped screaming after a few days and Raph stopped crying. He had a feeling of dull resignation and apathy to the whole situation. His life was ruined and there was nothing he could do. Sometimes he imagined what would happen if April adopted her and his heart would lighten a little. She would be taken care of and he could get back to his own life. He missed the night air and the rooftops and adrenalin.

Raph stopped talking after he stopped crying. He was never highly verbal at the best of times, so it seemed like life had gone back to normal to the rest of the household. Raph spent most of his time finding excuses to yell at his brothers. He managed to punch Don out for suggesting that the baby got its weepy disposition from Raph. Like father like daughter, he'd said. He spent lots of time staring. Staring at the wall, staring at the baby, staring at his father with an angry expression, staring at the piles of extra work that the baby created by doing absolutely nothing.

As soon as the baby fell asleep, he fled to the dojo and savagely mutilated the punching bag and lifted as many weights as he could manage without pulling tendons.

He resented how the baby managed to hijack his most private routines. Not that anything between the Hamato boys was private.

* * *

"Water too warm?" he asked the baby as he stood in the shower with her in one hand and a beer in the other. He sometimes drank in the shower. Seemed like as good a place to do it as any. Turtles were aquatic life forms and so he didn't see any sense in bathing her in an inch of water like April had suggested. She waved her little arms as the water hit her and giggled.

He took a long drink of the beer before setting it down so he could scrub the baby before scrubbing himself. He wasn't sure how he would manage it one handed. Maybe he would let her crawl around in the bottom of the tub once she could crawl. But she couldn't now. It wasn't like she would drown. Maybe he would just lie her down and let her play in the water. He liked watching her lie on her shell and rock back and forth. It was pretty funny.

He'd attempted to bathe the baby the day before. Raph was filling the sink with dirty dishes and decided that he could kill two birds with one stone if he threw the baby in first. But Master Splinter caught him and ordered him to drain the dish water and start over.

* * *

"What are you going to name the baby?" Mikey asked as he sat in the empty bathtub brushing his teeth at the faucet. Leo was monopolizing the bathroom sink so he could pick at his face and plan his skincare attack for the following day. Raph marveled at Leo's vanity as he stood urinating at the toilet and watching the baby as she rocked on her shell a few feet away, holding her feet in her hands.

"Baby doesn't need a name," Raph said over the sound of the water running from himself and the bathtub. "I'll call it Baby."

"You can't call her that," Leo said as he systematically wrinkled up his forehead to see how his skin changed with the movement.

"She's mine and I'll call her whatever I want." He automatically reached down to retrieve the baby off the floor, but Leo said, "Don't! Wash your hands first."

Raph shrugged and motioned at the occupied sink.

"Well, get in under me."

He bent awkwardly to wash his hands while Leo loomed over him, picking at his clogged pores.

Mikey had finished brushing his teeth and was now washing his feet. Leo said, "Why don't you just take a real shower?"

He pretended he didn't hear him. "Thought of any names besides Baby?"

It hadn't occurred to Raph that he would need to name the kid. Now it seemed obvious. Nothing entered his mind. He had absolutely no opinion on girls' names. "What about April?" he asked as he finally picked up the baby.

"Well, she's a girl and that's her name. But that would be way too confusing," Leo said, checking his teeth. Raph thought it made him look rabid.

Don poked his head in the bathroom door and said, "What are you guys doing?"

Raph shifted the baby under his arm like a sack of potatoes. Her arms and legs hung down limply as she looked curiously from side to side. "I was pissing a minute ago. Want a report?"

"Want to go for a walk?" Don asked.

Mikey sprung out of the bathtub. "Yeah! Okay! Let's go for a run. Walk shmalk."

"Not you!" Don said, rather sharply. "I meant Raph and Baby."

Raph knew that Mikey's feelings would be hurt by that. "Oh, okay." He hung his head and left the bathroom.

Leo toweled his face dry and said, "What are you two going to do?"

"Walk," Don said. He grabbed Raph by the arm and pulled him out of the bathroom. "Bring the car seat," he whispered.

* * *

The car seat was large and bulky and forced Raph to carry his weight in a way that he didn't like. Don walked a head of him a few paces, headed down random tunnels. Raph knew that they weren't headed anywhere in particular and so Don had a prohibited activity in mind and was looking for a secluded place.

"Does this involve an open flame, by any chance?" Raph asked.

Don giggled. "Yeah. But you'll like it. Trust me."

They finally stopped at a distance deemed safe enough from the lair for Don to unveil his new and forbidden hobby. Turned out it was an old and forbidden hobby. He pulled something small out of his belt. "Guess what I found under the couch?"

It was a pack of cigarettes. "I thought I got rid of them all," Raph said. He reached automatically for the pack, but Don held it out of his reach. Nicotine would be a great comfort at the moment. He and Don had gone through a brief period of addiction before Leo forced them to quit. Raph would never admit that he was addicted. He knew it was stupid for ninjas to smoke. Decreased lung capacity and all. But Don's OCD habits had caused a rather bad hang up in his case.

"I miss these so much," Don said as he slammed the pack into his palm. "It complemented my caffeine habit so nicely."

Raph looked down at the inconvenient baby and said, "We can't do it near this thing. I'll have to leave her down there for a while." Luckily, she was asleep and his guilt was alleviated as long as he could keep her within in his vision. He put the car seat about twenty feet down the tunnel. He wondered if breathing the contaminated air of the sewers was any worse than breathing cigarette smoke.

They leaned against the wall, puffing together and Raph felt more relaxed than he had for at least a week.

Don said, "She's been sleeping soundly the last two nights. What happened?"

Raph savored the smoke in lungs and said, "Oh, I've been putting a little whiskey in her bottle at night. Knocks her right out."

"I don't think you're supposed to do that," Don said, scratching his head with his free hand. "You'll raise an alcy like you."

"I'm not an alcoholic!"

Don smiled at himself for making Raph defensive as he took another drag.

"What's up in the lab?" Raph asked.

Don tapped some ashes into his hand and watched the embers die away. He was such a pyro. "I'm trying to hook up a hot plate to a car battery."

"Why?"

"Why not?"

They smoked in contented silence for a while and Don said, "So, you don't know who the baby's mother is?"

Raph didn't honor it with an answer.

"There must be one. She didn't make herself."

His stomach clenched. Had some woman taken his semen? That was messed up. Or had somebody given it to some woman? Worst of all, had some woman been impregnated against her will? He imagined a woman giving birth, hoping for a pink human baby, only to be handed a green monster that looked like him.

"Earth to Raphael," Don said, waving his hand in front of Raph's eyes, complete with burning cigarette between the fingers.

"She must be a lot better looking than me," Raph said, rubbing out his expired cigarette. "The mother, I mean. Whoever she is."

"Or was…" Don said.

The idea made him sick and he didn't want to talk about it anymore. He snatched the pack of cigarettes out of Don's hand. "These go with me. Thanks, by the way." Raph grabbed the car seat and headed back to the lair, knowing that Leo would smell him like a blood hound when he got back.

* * *

The only good thing that the baby did, in Raphael's opinion, was that she slept a lot. She didn't like the bassinet. Didn't like being in a space where she couldn't see someone. He didn't flatter himself to think that she missed him in particular. So the baby either slept in her car seat or else on the bed next to him.

The first night of her residency she had been stowed in the dojo. Raph refused to let her stay in the bedroom and since his brothers were forbidden from touching her, he needed some kind of monitoring system to keep an eye on her. Don rerouted the surveillance equipment and aimed it all at the dojo. They had an old fire alarm set to go off if anything passed the perimeter when it was turned on. It was the most cobbled up security system in use in all of New York City, but it worked. Mostly it woke them to up to alert them of the threat of raccoons.

The alarm went off three separate times, waking up everyone in the lair. Splinter didn't say anything; only watched them all. Raph preferred it when his father yelled. He didn't like knowing that his actions were being judged. Finally, Leo took the camera and slept with it under his arm, daring his brothers to retrieve it from him. He valued his sleep above all other functions.

So now Baby was forced to share a room with Raph and Mikey.

"You shouldn't sleep like that," Mikey warned as they both settled down to sleep. The baby was lying curled in Raph's arms. "It's cute, but you could roll over on her and kill her."

"I won't roll over."

It hadn't even occurred to him to worry about it.

He hadn't gotten much sleep lately. He hated to be touched, especially when he was trying to sleep. And now he had a tiny little body against his skin every minute. It was nearly impossible for him to forget that she was there, especially since he might accidentally kill her if he did.

Finally, Mikey explained that he should put her back in the bassinet after she fell asleep. She wouldn't know the difference. He was glad for the advice, but didn't say anything.

Raph laid the baby on his chest, face down. She liked to feel him breathing. He watched as she yawned toothlessly against his skin and her head lolled back and forth. She smiled even while she fussed, like she couldn't decide if she was happy or sad and would furrow her brow and then smile and furrow her brow again until she was asleep. He couldn't see much of himself in her, besides looks.

At least it was peaceful and there was something rather private and intimate about it that he wished Mikey wasn't there to see. It almost made up for the fact that she intuitively knew to cry every time he tried to sit down to eat. It was a good way to lose weight. He hadn't been training as much as he used to and hoped he wouldn't lose his edge. He hadn't been outside of the lair in a week. The streets must be full of Purple Dragons waiting for an ass kicking.

That night he dreamed that he was trying to pick up a squash off the kitchen floor. But his hands were so covered in blood that it spun out of his hands and he never was able to pick it up.


	7. Fluids

**Fluids**

_So I thought of another awful thing to do to Raph. I hope this doesn't get too R rated but I just couldn't resist doing this. I love putting him in awful, embarrassing situations. If anybody thinks I should up the rating, just say so and I'll do it. I know nothing about hockey or sports. So if I said something stupid just PM me and tell me how to fix it._

Raph never thought that he would ever be so familiar with any other individual's excretions. He tried not to be very familiar with his own, let alone anybody else's. And yet he found himself standing around smelling his baby's backside, feeling and looking inside her diaper and checking her diaper contents for consistency and color.

He was sure he'd had saliva in every possible crevice of his body and he had found spit-up dried to his shell nearly every day. He and the baby were beginning to take on the same smell. A sickly sweet baby formula smell.

And there was a new way to make his daughter hate him. Don explained that babies can't blow their own noses and so Raph would have to use a little rubber bulb with a nozzle on the end, squeeze it until the bulb was clear of air, stick it up her nose and suction it out. It seemed easy enough. Raph squeezed the little rubber bulb, stuck the pointed end up the baby's nose and released the bulb. She screamed louder than she had ever screamed. He pulled it out immediately, but Don yelled over the wailing, "Just hurry up and get it done while she's mad. You'll just have to upset her again later if you don't!"

So Raph jabbed the nose picker up her nose again and squeezed and released until her nose was clear. Then he picked her up off the table and said, "I'm sorry, Baby. I wasn't trying to kill you or anything." And he cuddled her against his plastron, feeling like an abusive parent.

She quieted down into a sad and teary hiccup after a few minutes. Don said, "Wow, she quieted down for you. I think she likes you now."

Raph shrugged. "She's with me a lot so I guess I'm familiar."

Don smirked and said, "Sure. Whatever you say." Then he picked up a clipboard from nearby and stared at it while Raph rubbed Baby's shell. "I've been thinking… I want to ask you to do me a favor. Well, it's really a favor to you, I guess. I thought maybe I could figure out what species that mother is or was. By using your DNA and the baby's DNA I could maybe isolate the mitochondrial DNA. And I was wondering… uh…"

He was blushing and Raph was getting a bad feeling about the request. "Wondering what?"

"I'd like to take a specimen sample from both of you. Like a cheek swab from the baby."

"Yeah, sure," he said, sticking a pacifier in her mouth and watching her pop it out onto the floor.

"I'd like to get a… semen sample from you. You know, to see if there are any funny things going on there…" Don hung his head and stood on one of his feet.

Raph laid the baby on the table as he felt the blood going to his head. "WHAT? ISN'T MY SPERM MY OWN ANYMORE? EVERYBODY WANTS A PIECE OF ME! WELL, IT'S MINE! MY FUCKING SPERM AND NOBODY ELSE GETS ANY!"

"What was that?" Mikey asked vaguely from another room.

Don stamped his foot. He hated being denied the privilege of looking at something under a microscope. "I don't want it for fun! I want to see how your sperm penetrated the egg! It'll be really helpful…"

"Ahhhh!" Raph covered his ears with his hands and then had an irrational urge to cover the baby's ears too. "I don't want to know! Ever think of that!"

Don closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths. He opened them and said, "Well, think about her. I think it's important that we know where she came from. I mean medically. If anything happened. And to know exactly what she is in case… I don't know."

He knew it made sense and it was necessary, but that didn't mean that he had to like it. He picked the baby up from the table. She had rolled onto her side in a failed attempt to travel along the work bench. "Fine. I'll give you some next time I make any." He turned to leave the room.

"No, I need you to give me a clean sample. Can't have any contamination. You have to do it in a cup."

Raph froze in the doorway, hoping he didn't accidentally squeeze the life out of the baby in his rage. He needed to wear the baby sling that April had bought for him so he could have his hands free to strangle his brothers. "In… a… cup?"

Squeaky voice. "Yes?"

"You will pay. You will pay for this," Raph said, pointing dramatically at Don.

* * *

"Are you done yet?" Leo asked through the bathroom door.

Raph threw the Playboy across the room and said, "No, and it really helps me feel sexy with you asking me that all the time!"

It was useless. He had a magazine full of naked human women and other more exotic material and all he could think to do was urinate every half hour and read the articles in the Playboy. He'd cleaned the shower and built a pyramid with the extra toiletry bottles.

There was another knock at the door.

"Piss off! I'm not done masturbating!"

"Raphael." He froze at the sound of his father's voice. "I must ask that you leave the bathroom again temporarily."

He hid the naughty magazines and knocked over the shampoo pyramid as he hurried to let Splinter into the bathroom. His face was as red as his mask when he opened the door. He knew he'd barely gotten anywhere and that Splinter had caught him in far more embarrassing situations, but somehow the fact that he knew full well what he was doing was extremely humiliating.

Splinter patted him on the arm as they passed each other in the doorway.

"How goes the jacking off?" Mikey asked unceremoniously as he bounced the baby and she giggled at him.

Raph didn't like seeing any of the others holding the baby. He could immediately pinpoint at least three things they were doing wrong and he went straight to Mikey and snatched her out of his hands. "It ain't going at all. It's kind of hard to… you know… when you can hear Leo in the next room talking about the proper way to load a dishwasher."

"What is all this talk about jacking off?" April asked from the kitchen table.

Raph's head whipped around. He hadn't known she was there. "Why are you here? Go home!"

"Leo's paying my bills." Raph didn't know why Leo did that. Like she couldn't count? He supposed it made him feel important. "If you're having trouble here, you can come over and use my bathroom. It's quiet."

"Uh…" That was so wrong. "No thanks. I'll just give it up for today. Try tomorrow." What if she used her shower and he accidentally got her pregnant from his left over sperm residue? Was he slowly going insane?

Raph spent the next three days thinking about sex as much as he could. He was surprised that lightning hadn't stuck him dead out of a clear blue sky.

Not that it helped. The cup still sat on the edge of the bathtub, mocking him with its emptiness. What had happened? Whenever he needed semen, he couldn't get it. Whenever he didn't want it, then it was in plentiful supply. The world was cruel. Reproduction was starting to feel like an evil game where he would always come out the loser. A publicly humiliated loser.

* * *

On the fourth day, he found himself lying face down on his bed listening to the baby whine angrily in the bassinet because she couldn't see him. He heard someone enter the room. He could tell by the careful footsteps that it was Leo. "What's up?" Leo asked.

"I think I'm impotent," he muttered into his pillow. "I'm sixteen and impotent." He didn't care about keeping personal things personal anymore. There didn't seem to be any point. He felt like his brain was a mushy cesspool.

Leo hissed between his teeth at this inappropriate confession and the door closed. The bedsprings rattled as Leo sat next to him. "Maybe you should quit trying. This is stupid. You never… had trouble before. It's probably stress. Don can live without his sample. And if you… you know… give him one eventually, then he should be happy about it."

He said in a pillow muffled voice, "My child's health is on the line. What if she gets Lyme Disease?"

"We'll deal with it. He can be kind of an alarmist. Now get yourself together. We're going to spar."

"Spar?" He sat bolt upright. He hadn't had a fight in three days. A fight. That was good. Hitting Leo. That was better.

Maybe that was the problem lately, he thought, as he pinned Leo to the floor, sat his chest and pounded him in the face. He hadn't been sparring or training as consistently as usual and he was just turning into a sissy. He needed to go out and have some decent bloodshed. Leo kicked him sideways and he skidded across the floor before catching himself. The sparring match had turned into an all out pummeling a while ago. He fought until he collapsed in a fugue state, his brain clogged with adrenalin and he lay there until he felt somebody prodding him in the side. Leo said, "Raph, you okay?"

"You're still here?" He'd honestly forgotten who he had been fighting. He struggled up and said, "I'm going to Casey's."

* * *

The first words that greeted him when he climbed in Casey's window were, "So I heard that you're impotent. Good thing you don't get laid. That would suck."

Raph looked around for Casey's ass so he could kick it. He was sitting on his couch with a beer in his hand. His gear was nearby and the police scanner was on. It was the kind of duel sound set up that Raph hated when he was there. "Turn off one of those. You know it makes me feel like a schizoid."

Casey turned down the television. "What do you need? I got pay per view if you brought your cup."

It took Raph a long time to figure out what he meant and he said, "Fuck, no! I want to go out. Look for something to do. Get your golf bag."

Casey didn't need to be asked twice and picked up his gear. "What about your medical homework?"

"I'm through with that. If my kid gets cancer, then she'll just have to have my kidney and live with it. She officially doesn't have a mother." He didn't want to talk about it anymore and hoped that some violence would sufficiently drive it out of Casey's brain.

They climbed onto the roof and Casey muttered, "If she gets cancer… she'll have your kidney… What kind of sense does that make? What if she gets lung cancer?"

"Then I'll give her my lung, douche bag." He scanned the streets below him, desperately looking for a mugger. The air was warm and Raph closed his eyes for a second, taking in the breeze. Ah, pollution. He'd missed it.

Casey sat on the ledge next to him and said, "You can't give somebody a lung."

"Is that a… nope, that's a cat."

He could feel Casey whipping his hockey stick idly in the air. "So, how's it going? Being a parent?"

"Sucks major balls. Let's move over a few blocks. This is pointless." They started moving and Raph hoped the talk would end.

They perched on the side of another building, scanning the alley. Nothing. Where were all the criminals when he needed them? Casey said, "Are you still going to give the baby to April?"

Give it to April? He'd forgotten about that. "Maybe, if she still wants her. I mean… it's up to her."

"So that would make you and April her parents, huh? You'd be the daddy and she'd be the mommy?"

Was there some movement behind that garbage can? No. "Something like that." His brain finally caught up to what Casey was saying. He turned to face him and saw that he was crossing his arms defensively. "Wait a minute. Are you jealous?"

"What?" Casey didn't move.

"You're jealous! You dickhead! Like I'd make a move on your girlfriend! You're this biggest pussy I've ever met."

"Forget it. See anything?"

They spent nearly three hours moving from rooftop to rooftop, but it was time well spent in Raph's opinion. Much better than being trapped in the lair with a whimpering baby or trying to make medical samples for his brother against his will.

"You coming over for the Rangers versus Blackhawks game?" Casey asked idly. "I think we should take a shot every time a guy takes a puck to the face."

"Ye… I don't know." He wasn't sure what he was supposed to do with the baby. Could he dump it on one of his brothers so he could go watch a hockey game and get drunk? He wasn't sure if he was even supposed to dump the baby tonight. Wouldn't it be hard to give her a bottle if he was falling down drunk? Didn't sound too safe. He wasn't supposed to be drunk to any degree anyway.

"Motherhood's making you go soft," Casey said, reading the indecision in his face.

"It is not. It's just that I'm getting depressed watching my home team lose every season opener. They're getting as bad as the Detroit Lions. No wonder Michigan's in an economic slowdown and Ford left Detroit and that shit. Don has this theory that there's a mini-black hole under Detroit and its sucking everything good in it."

"What about the Rangers though?" Casey asked, swinging a golf club through the air at an imaginary opponent. "How do you account for that? Is there a mini-black hole under New York?"

"No. If there is, I'll find it and kick its ass."

Casey laughed and both of their attention was momentarily drawn to a siren on the distant horizon. It headed away from them and they both relaxed.

Raph asked, "Do you think that Richter's really a communist?"

"Could be," Casey said, looking down into the alley with him. "Does it matter? He can think whatever he wants. This is America, bitch!"

"I'm going to say that next time Leo wants me to do the dishes. 'This is America, bitch! I'll do what I want.' They probably do so bad 'cause they get so many injuries. I mean, I've seen all four of us walk off the worst stuff they've had. What a bunch of pansies."

Then Raph spotted a whole group of Purple Dragons following a stupid and unsuspecting female into a dark alley. Thank you, stupid, unsuspecting girl, he thought as he flew silently down the side of the building.

* * *

Raph crept into his bedroom near morning. The baby was asleep in her bassinet with her little bottom in the air. Mikey was asleep with his teddy bear. He must have taken care of the baby all night. Raph would have felt guilty about it if he didn't know that taking care of babies was Mikey's life calling. He reached down to pick up his tiny daughter and smell her diaper. Blood dripped off his fingers and onto the white bedding of the bassinet. He was covered in a mixture of his own blood and the blood of the Purple Dragons he'd cut up. He hadn't killed them. He didn't kill stupid gang members if he could help it. But he wasn't averse to banging them up. He hesitated with his hands in the air above her.

He climbed in the shower and stood under the hot water, watching the blood go down the drain. Who would be so cruel as to give a monster like him a baby?


	8. Baby Hamato

_Master Splinter and his magical baby powers. Makes me laugh. My sister named her first baby after a legendary character and the "no really" reaction Leo has and Raph's repetition is exactly our exchange._

**Baby Hamato**

Raph would gladly call his daughter Baby for the rest of her life. He was resentful of this universal assertion that he needed to name the baby. It was his, wasn't it? It would go without a name until it died of old age, if he wanted.

He knew that he was being illogical, but he didn't like the pressure of choosing a name. He felt like everybody was expecting something very important from him.

There was something else that he tried to push out of his mind because it felt too selfish. Naming the baby made it his. It meant that he had put a permanent mark of ownership on the baby. Like a seal or a cattle brand. Property of Hamato Raphael. Do not touch.

It seemed like as soon as he entered a room he was hit with, "Did you name the baby yet?" He tried not to enter rooms much.

But his father had noticed his reluctance to name his own baby and had called a family meeting at April's apartment. Master Splinter stood before them, holding a ratty old book. Raph bounced the baby mindlessly on his knee. She enjoyed sitting up. He was surprised at how fast she was growing. "Is this normal?" he asked April. He was trying to ask her confidentially, but Casey refused to leave them alone together, as if Raph pleading for information on the regularity of his baby's bowel movements would somehow blossom into romance.

She took the baby and said, "Babies grow fast, Raph. She'll be talking in six months. She'll be crawling in no time."

"Crawling?" It was downright cruel. Just when he got used to her in the state she was in, then she had to go and change on him.

"Please listen, everyone," Master Splinter said, calling their attention. "I have called you all together because I am concerned about the baby's future. When I first mutated and found that I had the ability of language, the first thing that excited me was the knowledge that I had a name. I had an identity and it was all mine. And I carefully chose names for all my sons. I wanted to give them the same pride in their name that I had."

Raph hung his head in anticipation of the public shame.

"And I know that my own son will do the same honor to his daughter. For my granddaughter."

Full on shame.

"Have you picked a name yet?" Leo asked, right on cue to make his guilt even more perfect.

He growled a reply. "No."

"I had an idea," Master Splinter said. "I want all of us to write down four names. Maybe this will help Raphael as he makes this important decision."

Raph nearly jumped out of his chair in gratefulness. Then he had an urge to jump out on the fire escape and leave. April had the baby. What was stopping him? His old haunts. He could wander the city, looking for action.

Then he came back to reality as the soft baby was handed back into his arms.

"That's a good idea," Raph said. "The only name I can think of is April."

"That's a good name," April said.

Casey tentatively took the baby and sat her on his knees, as far away as he could manage without instigating comments of cowardice. "How about Raphaella?"

"Yeah!" Mikey popped the baby's pacifier out of his mouth. He liked to suck on them and it was driving Raph up the wall. "Some derivation of your name would be super cute."

Well, that wasn't happening then. "Mike, get that thing out of your mouth! You want my kid to get some disease? If she does, it'll be your fault if she dies and I'll make sure to remind you every day of your life! Do I look like I have enough of an ego to name my kid after me? What if it made her turn out like me? Nobody wants that." Raph wanted his daughter to be an angel that obeyed everything he said and was very responsible and respectful. He wanted a girl version of Leo. Not a girl version of himself.

Splinter smiled at him and he turned his head. He knew his father was inspecting him for paternal developments and he felt like he'd been doing something private in public whenever it happened.

"I'll get paper," Don said. He rummaged in April's closet. She stood behind him, pointing at stuff that was about to fall out, but in no way helping to prevent the landslide.

Raph wanted the kid again. Where'd she gone? After about fifteen minutes out of his sight, he built up an anxiety. It was like the feeling he got when he lost his keys. "Where's my baby?"

Giggling from the kitchen. It was Leo. He rolled his eyes. Leo was not a guy who should giggle. And he did it all the time now. It was like a secret language that everybody spoke but him.

The baby was sitting up on the kitchen floor, wobbling. She had learned to sit up just three days ago. It was actually pretty cool. He used her to prop up his drinks between her fat legs sometimes. Now they sat next to each other on the couch, watching TV. Raph would sit down and then prop up the baby next to him in the corner and found that he talked to her like another brother.

"Raph, look at this!" Leo said. He pulled a page out of the yellow pages and the baby laughed.

Leo was sitting on the floor with a few pages of paper from the phone book and leering smilingly at the baby. Then he slowly ripped a page in half. She laughed so hard that she tipped over on her side.

Mikey was in the doorway and said, "That's the cutest thing I've ever seen."

"Yeah, Leo, you're adorable," Raph said.

Leo ripped another page and they watched as the force of her laughter knocked her over again.

"Hopefully, she'll have better equilibrium as a student," Leo said, picking her up and standing.

"Student?" Raph said. "You mean, as a ninja?"

Leo rolled his eyes. "No, at underwater basket weaving."

Training Baby as a ninja. It hadn't occurred to him. It should have. Why would Leo get to do it? Maybe he wanted to train his own kid. Maybe he didn't want her trained at all. Maybe he wanted to lock her in the lair until she was 35. Could he see himself going out, fighting missions with his own daughter? Hopefully, she wouldn't want to be a ninja. She'd prefer being a housewife. Or a nerd like Donny.

"We'll see," Raph mumbled. He took the Baby from Leo and she yawned and cuddled her face into his collar bone.

April "awed" loudly.

"Here's something she likes," Raph said. He tossed her up in the air and caught her over his head. She laughed and smiled down at him as he wiggled her body in the air and tossed her like a rag doll.

"Don't drop her!" April said.

Raph scowled at April's doubt and then smirked. He gave Baby a final toss and purposefully let her fall a few inches before catching her. Baby seemed to enjoy it. April screamed. Leo laughed.

Mikey punched Raph on the arm as he passed him on his way to the fridge. He opened the door and looked inside. Then said, "Do you still count as a virgin, Raph? I mean, you haven't had sex, right?"

"Not that I know of."

"But you aren't the Virgin Mary or anything. It wasn't a miracle. At least as far as we know. Maybe she was conceived by the Force like Anakin Skywalker." Mikey popped open a can of soda and drained it all in one gulp.

That was a good question. He felt nauseated at the idea of declaring himself not-a-virgin. Especially since he hadn't gotten to do anything to earn the title.

"No, you're a virgin," April said. "Whatever happened to you was more like a rape."

Everybody looked at each other sideways, supposing he would go crazy at them. But the same thought drifted into his own mind sometimes. Was it rape? He abhorred the idea of it. Not his own rape, but rape in general. Men using their strength to overpower people weaker than themselves. It was the worst kind of cowardice. Could you call what happened to him rape? He was in no way weak. But he had been overpowered and taken advantage of, in a sexual way.

He went into the living room, hoping that his dramatic exit would demonstrate an unwillingness to discuss the idea. Don was writing down his names, concentrating with his tongue sticking out.

Casey handed him a folded sheet of paper.

Master Splinter said, "Please do not read these until we return home. Then you may decide without outside influence. Now let me hold my granddaughter."

Raph passed the drowsy infant to his father and watched as he used his magical baby powers to put her to sleep in about one second flat.

* * *

What name did she want? Raph sat across from the baby on his bed, staring at her. She was poking Mr. Bear in the face and then tipping over. He reached out and sat her up again.

He opened the first name suggestion. It was Master Splinter's list. Shen, Sakura, Lucia, Marietta. Hmm. Shen. He didn't want a Shen. He understood why Master Splinter would want to name a baby girl after Tang Shen, but he hadn't met her and didn't know if he wanted to name his kid after her. Sakura. Japanese. Didn't really want a Japanese name. Lucia and Marietta. Oh, ha ha. More names from the renaissance book. He wasn't sure if they were a joke or serious suggestions.

Next were Casey's names and his face burned with irritation that bordered on low grade anger. Squash Baby, Beyonce, Casey, Chiquita Banana. Squash Baby? Squash Baby! His baby did not look like a squash! She looked fine. She looked like him. She looked a little better than him, anyway. He inspected her big pretty eyes and decided they must be her mother's because she hadn't inherited his share of ugliness, even if she did look a lot like him. And Beyonce? Beyonce Hamato. Wasn't she a skanky singer? Casey. Ugh. He wouldn't even honor Chiquita Banana with a second glance or thought. He ripped up Casey's list and threw it aside.

Don's list was a little amusing. Dawn, Raphaela, Mika or Lea. Like he would name it after one of them if he couldn't name it after himself. He tossed it aside.

Wow. April had actually thought up some decent names that didn't make him want to vomit. Jade, Claudia, Raven, Tabitha. Jade. Sounded too harsh. Made him think of jealousy for some abstract reason. Claudia was the name of that brat vampire girl. So no. Raven was okay. Actually, kind of cool. Tabitha. Couldn't think of anything either way about that. He put it aside for later consideration.

Raph laughed out loud when he read Mikey's list. Chelonia, Echidna, Queen, Rainbow. Yeah, Chelonia, the Latin name for turtle. Very funny. Echidna. That wouldn't do much for her self-esteem. Queen? No thanks. Rainbow? Only in Mikey's most bizarre dreams.

And last were Leo's suggestions. They were all old Victorian names. Samantha, Natalie, Elizabeth, Tara. Natalie sounded like an old French lady wearing a bunch of dead foxes. Trust Fearless to come up with totally pretentious old lady names. Well, except Tara. That wasn't so bad. He'd always liked Tara on "Buffy: the Vampire Slayer." Reminded him of Don. Quiet and smart and secretly the coolest one in the room.

The baby sneezed and tipped over again. What name did she want? He couldn't help the name Squash Baby instantly springing to mind as she fell with her lumpy shell towards him.

* * *

Raph stood awkwardly in the doorway of the dojo. He'd left the baby in the living room with her grandpa. Leo was spinning around in midair and looking gracefully perfect while Mikey pretended to lift weights and Don lifted one barbell and read a National Geographic with the other.

He sat down at the weight bench and loaded it with as many weights as he could manage. Leo stopped his swanlike flipping to watch. "What's up?"

Raph would have sighed angrily if he weren't busy breathing through the heavy weights. "I… named… the kid…"

Don dropped his weight on the floor and ran over, magazine flapping through the air. Mikey's feigned weight lifts faltered.

They all watched him in suspense as he lifted the weights again in the air. He was impressed with himself. He could bench quite a lot when he was embarrassed.

Leo fluttered his hand in the air to prompt a discloser. "Yeah and…?"

"Eowyn…"

"What?" Mikey said. "Did you sneeze?"

The weights froze in midair as Leo grabbed a hold and forcefully put it back on the rack.

He sat up, panting. "I named it Eowyn Tara Hamato."

"Eowyn?" Don said. "Where have I heard that?"

Leo laughed. "Okay, no really. What did you name her?"

Raph growled. "I named her… Eowyn… Tara…"

Giggling from Mikey.

"Well, I wanted to name her Eowyn because she's really cool. She's a fighter, but she's nice and girly too. And she saves her uncle from that witch on the flying snake. She's real brave. I thought it would be good to name her after a brave girl."

"Yeah, but…" Don looked like he'd swallowed a lemon whole. "That's a weird name."

"No, really, Donatello," Raph said, leaning into his name.

Leo seemed suspicious, like he thought Raph would yell, "Psyche!" at any moment. "You know, I remember that you said you would name your daughter after her when we watched 'Return of the King' but I thought you were joking. You were drunk out of your mind at the time anyway."

"We!"

Leo rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably.

Mikey said, "Hey! Why do you guys get drunk without us!"

Raph remembered the occasion. It was a drinking game gone horribly wrong. They decided to take a shot of whiskey every time a hobbit was physically struck. But they hadn't estimated how much abuse that hobbits take and they were both passed out by the time Pelannor Fields was liberated. One of Raph's concluding statements consisted of something like, "I'm gonna name my first born kid after that bitch. She jus' saved her uncle and cut off that thing's head. That's so cool. Let's go to April's and jump out at her in the dark again."

Leo was in mid self-defense. "We only do it about once a year and I have a responsibility to keep you little ones…"

"Ohhh!" both Mikey and Don said.

Don said, pointing dramatically. "It's for our protection, huh? What about Raph? You haven't been 'protecting' him from drinking."

"He'd just be a sad guy who drinks alone, otherwise," Mikey said sourly.

"Can we talk about my name!" Raph said. "I picked Tara… I don't know…" He shrugged self-consciously. Leo had wanted the baby and it seemed like the least courtesy to use a name he had picked.

"Eowyn Tara Hamato," Mikey said. "I guess it grows on you."

So Raph went to the living room and christened the baby Eowyn Tara Hamato and watched as Splinter's whiskers flicked with confusion. "Please repeat that slowly," he said.


	9. An Unwilling Participant

_Don't know much about turtle anatomy, so I just made up whatever sounded the worst. Sorry. Guess what movie they're watching. Seems like these doctors are always evil and get sadistic pleasure out of hurting them. I don't know why. Trying not to get too emo or angsty or graphic. Trying to be good and balanced._

**An Unwilling Participant**

Eowyn Hamato. Raph was proud of the name. Not too girly. Not really boyish either. It would be a good name for a full grown woman. A full grown woman! In sixteen years his daughter would be the age he was now and he would be thirty two. That didn't seem old enough to have a teenage daughter, even to a teenager.

Would he have to teach her about sex someday? The tomato he was slicing skidded out of his hand and shot across the cutting board. How would he explain it to her? Would it even be necessary? She would only know relatives. It wasn't like she could date her uncles or anything.

Or maybe she could. They weren't blood relatives. He looked down at his baby, crawling at his feet, tapping his toe with a stuffed frog and then over at Don, watching TV. Back down at Eowyn. Over to Don. No. It wouldn't happen. If Don, Leo or Mikey asked to marry his kid… he would murder them outright.

What if one of them knocked her up. He couldn't do much about that. He imagined Leo coming to him and saying, "Raph, I can't help it. I'm in love with Eowyn and she's having my child." Why did it look like a soap opera in his mind's eye?

That would never happen. They would be just as much uncles to her as if she were blood. No reason to worry. He could trust all of them.

Sometimes his mind exploded with pink terror. She looked up at him with total adoration and innocence and he imagined a future full of tea parties and fluffy dresses and nail polish and Gossip Girl. The worst facets of female kind.

Mikey said, "Won't it be cool when she's old enough to play with and we can have tea parties and dress her up in frilly dresses and when she wears make up!" He was actually looking forward to all the things Raph feared.

"She'll wear red," Raph said, scooping her up and holding her in his arm like an inanimate object. "Nobody's dressing my kid up like a drag queen."

Mikey made faces at Eowyn. She giggled and blew a raspberry at him. "Oh, she's a little flirt!" Mikey said, pinching her nose. "I'm in love all ready."

Raph flipped her around in his arms, laying her face against his collar bone. In love. In love with his daughter. Too creepy. Not happening. He walked off with no warning.

Mikey said, "Whatever, El Rudo."

He locked himself in his room, bouncing the baby a little, looking around for diapers. It wasn't like he was especially fond of the kid. He just didn't want any blood child of his shacked up with his brother.

His blood child. He held her out at arm's length and inspected her closely. He did this several times a day. Yup. Still looked like him. A girl version of himself. That was a bone chilling prospect. What if she was just like him in personality too. Maybe that was some kind of karma. To raise a child exactly like yourself. If you were a good child, you were blessed with a good baby. If not…

Raph had been a crybaby. He knew it. He wouldn't admit it, but he knew it just as well as he knew that he was male or that the sun rose every morning. He cried all the time. Most of his earliest memories involved crying. Mikey bit him and he cried. He was scared of cats and bathwater. He cried when Leo took his toys or scared him. Leo scared him on purpose a lot.

Eowyn fussed, wrinkling up her forehead and squeezing her eyes shut melodramatically. The little diva. Probably tired. Not tired face. Hungry face. He knew her faces by now.

He passed through the living room in a trance of self hypnosis, headed towards the bottle stash. Filled the bottle with warm water with one hand. Opened the premeasured formula container and tipped it into the bottle. Put the nipple back on. Shook it.

She made a grab at it, but he wanted to sit down first and held it out of her reach. "Wait a minute, kid." He settled down on the couch and laid her in his lap.

Race cars whizzed back and forth on the television screen and a small explosion rocked the lab. Just a typical Saturday morning in the Hamato household. Leo's katanas whistled through the air in the dojo. Thumps as Leo's feet hit the mat.

There were a few instances when he almost liked Eowyn. Almost. When she fell asleep. That was nice. Not only was she quiet, but she lay on his chest, rising and falling with his breath. That was sort of calming.

But he liked her best when she ate. She was quiet then too. She lay in his lap, sucking on the bottle. Loud slurping sounds that normally disgusted him. If Mikey made those sounds eating, he would smack him upside the head. But the best part; the part that was almost bearable… She watched him while she ate, staring into his eyes with a steady and deep gaze that embarrassed him at first. Sometimes she held onto his finger. She wanted to look into his eyes, like he was the most fascinating thing on the face of the earth. And it was a look of total trust. He was the last thing she saw when she fell asleep and the first thing she saw when she woke up. That was cool.

And their eyes were the same.

"How's it going?" Leo asked, panting. Leo was smiling, so his practice must have gone well.

"Fine. Brat's finally falling asleep. Maybe I can get a workout in now."

He laughed. "The brat?"

"Yeah." He wiped drool off her cheek with his finger.

"Okay. Whatever." Leo headed towards the bathroom, still laughing.

* * *

If anyone asked Raphael for the single worst aspect of his life, they would probably get a long list. The reader would later discover that most of these burdens could be traced back to a single source of torment. Leonardo. But there were a few other things that ranked highly on the list and one of them was family night. The night when they all sat around the lair, trying to have fun. Raph enjoyed spending time with his family, but there was something about the fact that fun was expected that somehow made it impossible. Raph had been lobbying Splinter for an abolishment of family night for several years, usually saying that any time they spent together is family time and they don't go out into society anyway, so what was the point? It wasn't like they all had school or jobs. Splinter always countered with an itemized list of all the time he had spent alone in the lair. So Raph hadn't won yet.

"It won some Oscars, so it must be good," Leo said, pulling a disc out of the red Netflix sleeve. Leo relied on the Academy to make his movie choices for him sometimes.

"What's this about?" Mikey asked. He bounced Eowyn on his knee, holding her by the hands. She really liked Mikey. Raph watched them out of the corner of his eye.

He jealously studied her interaction with his brothers; gauging which one she liked the most. Raph was ashamed of himself, but he wanted her to like him best. She should be biologically attuned to him somehow. His frown increased as Mikey pulled her against his plastron and snuggled her.

"Who is in this movie?" Splinter asked. "May I have the box?"

Leo handed him the disc sleeve.

"This is not a box," he said sourly. "This print is so small. How can I read this? Donatello, look on the computer for the actors."

Raph didn't want to watch a movie. He wanted to lift his weights and couldn't help casting longing glances down the hall towards the dojo. Sighed. Family time. Stupid family.

The movie played and Raph didn't recognize any of the actors and didn't pay much attention when Don rattled them off. How many Purple Dragons were beating up old ladies right now? Probably lots. Maybe he could ask to leave. Ask really nicely.

Splinter watched the movie contentedly. He enjoyed family dramas. Raph didn't want to think about the problems of others. He wanted to see aliens or elves or people blowing things up. Not profound commentaries about suffering in urban America. He saw that suffering all the time.

Oh, if only he could leave. Run the rooftops. Find some action. His hands almost itched and he rubbed his thighs, since he wasn't wearing his weapons.

Eowyn whined loudly and Don said, "Make her be quiet. I can't hear the mother. She's awful. Why's she being so mean?"

Raph grabbed his baby from Mikey as she kicked angrily and he settled her against his chest to go to sleep. He hated doing it in front of everybody. Splinter always smiled when he witnessed their new bedtime ritual. Made him feel about five years old. He positioned her over his heart and felt her fluttery heartbeat against his skin.

Then he heard Mikey say, "What the hell?"

The main character in the movie was having sex. Raph didn't really care. That happened in every movie. No, on closer inspection, she was being raped. He instantly looked over at his father.

He was shaking his head.

Leo moved for the remote.

Splinter said, "You may keep watching if you wish, Leonardo. I do not want to keep you all in the dark about the evils of humanity. But you may turn it off if you like."

Don said, "I want to see what happens. I like her already."

Leo turned to Raph, his eyes dimly illuminated in the dark by the television. "Raph?"

"I don't care." He leaned his cheek against Eowyn's head and then pulled himself back when he remembered that everyone could see him. Thankfully, most of them were distracted by the horrific scene on the television. "Me and Baby are going to take a nap so it don't really matter."

Mikey said, "I don't think I want to watch this. I'm going to read. Goodnight, Sensei." He got up and hugged Splinter on his way to his room. The door closed quietly behind him.

"The rapist is her dad," Don said, seemingly out of nowhere.

Leo's eye ridges made a weird shape and he leaned back in his chair. "He is not."

"He is so! He said so when he was doing it! You guys were all talking. I'll back it up."

Splinter held up a hand. "I think we all believe you. There is no need to play that over again."

"Oh, hell no," Raph said. "Nobody rapes their own kids. You must have mixed it up. Whatever. I'm shutting my eyes. Enjoy."

Don said, "Well, somebody must do it. It's in a movie right?"

Because everything in the movies is true, Raph thought as he adjusted himself at the end of the couch, pulling his legs up and leaning against the pillow in the corner.

As soon as Raph was about to sleep he heard Don's voice saying, "She's pregnant remember? And where's her other kid? They're both by her dad."

"That is disgraceful. Where is that man?" Splinter asked. "In prison, I hope."

That didn't make any sense. The sleep drifting through his brain told him that he must have misheard it. He mumbled, "Her kids are her dad's? What?"

Don sighed and crunched on some potato chips. "I just said that her dad raped her. She's pregnant by her dad and she has another kid, but they haven't shown that kid yet."

Raph looked over at Leo, wondering what Fearless thought of all this. He was asleep, his head tilted against his shoulder, snoozing quietly. Splinter shook his head again as the mother threw something at her daughter.

"Thank you for not abusing us," Don said. "There's something to be said for growing up sheltered, I guess."

"You are welcome, Donatello. I am glad that Michelangelo chose to go to his room."

The movie was stupid. Eowyn slept soundly against his chest, her chubby face in a puddle of her own drool, pink tongue hanging out of her slightly open mouth. Her right arm hung at her side and the left was curled into a little fist against her shoulder.

* * *

_How had he let this happen? The drugs would take effect soon. His sais spun through the air, cutting a path through his opponents. Find safety. Find shelter before he was incapacitated. It grated against every ounce of instinct. Stay and finish it. End this. He knew he could._

_But he stumbled, one sai flying out of his grasp and landing several feet away as he missed a punch. The syringe hung out of his arm and he pulled it out with his still working hand. It didn't hurt. Numb. That was a bad sign. _

_Now he was on his knees. Pulled backwards by the remaining foot ninjas onto his shell. Could see the cloudy sky overhead and the building tops framing it on either side. There was a pigeon sitting on the ledge. The bricks on the left were brown. On the right, orange. They held down his shoulders and he couldn't even push them away. There was an old TV antenna overhead._

_One of the foot carried a duffle bag. He knelt next to Raph and looked down in his face, appraising him like an object. Raph would have gladly spat in his face or screamed obscenities, but his tongue wouldn't work. "It's bigger than you said."The man's head blocked out his view of the pigeon._

"_Can you do it?" asked another._

"_Of course. Spread its legs."_

_Could feel his knees grasped and pulled apart. Too numb to do anything about it. The one who had been looking him in the eye moved down out of his vision. The bird flew away. He could see a woman in her window, talking on the phone on the top floor. He needed to stop this. Focus. What was going on? Focus on his enemies._

"_Ever done this before?"_

"_Yeah, on a horse," the doctor said from somewhere around Raph's legs. Did anybody still use those antennas? There were at least ten, standing in a circle around him. It would have been so easy to take them all out. So easy. "Now hold onto its legs because it'll buck around when I get the clamp on. I know it's sedated, but better be safe. Hopefully, it won't feel anything."_

"_You're real compassionate," the other guy said. A few laughed._

_There was a sound of metal clanking. "I am, actually."_

_Raph managed to mumble something nonsensical. Felt a slight kick to the head. Somebody said, "Hey, shut up."_

_The doctor between his knees yelled, "Hey, cut it out! Have some respect! I don't care whatever your boss lets you do or if this thing kicks your ass on a regular basis! I'm in charge right now and you'll be quiet and let me get this done with as little pain or damage as possible."_

"_Why? This thing is just an animal anyway. A big violent animal. All it does is tear people apart."_

* * *

"DON'T TOUCH ME!" he screamed as his fist closed around his attacker's throat.

Don's dark eyes blinked back at him; Raph's fist around his neck.

Raph was sitting bolt upright. The baby screamed in his lap. She'd slid down his torso as he sat up. He tightened his grip, snarling at whoever dared put their hands on him.

"Release him!" Splinter said, reaching into Raph's lap to snatch up his crying child.

His mind unconsciously obeyed his father's voice and his fingers let go before he made the choice. Don rubbed his neck. He didn't look surprised. He should be shocked. This should be a rare occurrence. Not so common that he was only mildly annoyed.

Leo's head wobbled as he came back to life and he jerked to his feet. He grabbed Raph's arm and said, "What's wrong? Are you okay? You could have hurt the baby, jackass!"

Of course he would hurt the baby. It was only a matter of time, wasn't it?

"Like you know so much!" Raph said, knowing that it didn't make any sense. "Get your hands off me!" He pushed Leo away and he fell sideways into the coffee table, catching himself only halfway down, his senses still dulled from his sudden awakening.

"Want me to wake up Mikey so you can knock him around too!" Leo yelled as he righted himself.

Eowyn screamed in her grandfather's arms. She was scared because Raph was upset and he knew it. All her happiness was dependent upon him. And he felt the first flare of anger at his child. Real anger. She was the result of those few minutes. The memory raged in his brain. He laid there in the alley for hours, unable to move and then when he could, the pain throbbed so hard that he wished he were numb again. And it had resulted in this burden he hadn't asked for. Raph shoved them all aside and headed towards the door, the memory of the sky and the rooftops and the clicking of the metallic instruments still burning in his head.

Mikey wandered out of his room, rubbing his eyes. "What's up?" he asked drowsily as Raph blew past him.

The baby's cries followed him, calling him back. But he ignored her.

"She's probably better off if you're gone anyway!" Leo shouted after him. "At least you won't hurt her if you're gone!"

But then the security alarm went off and he froze, his foot in the air mid-step. Someone was in the tunnels. Leo immediately headed towards the door, a katana in his hand, the argument instantly forgotten. Don looked around for his bo and left without it when it wasn't easily discovered. Raph gave his daughter a glance before following them.


	10. 1,2 and 3

_Finally had an idea… I realize now that the ending of this chapter is much more awful in the telling than the outline. But meh. Whatever._

Don went back for his bo. Felt like he'd left his arm behind in the lab. But it was a false step that sealed his doom. He felt a warm baby pressed into his arms. It wiggled and bucked against him for freedom from its captor. "Hey, watch this for me," Leo as he rushed past like a green gazelle, katanas drawn.

Raph's sleepy eyes made him look like a raging bull, his eyes wild with fear and somewhat delirious to his surroundings, probably still trapped in the residue of his dream. Hands on his sais. A passing glance at his daughter as he lurched towards the tunnels.

Mikey stuck his tongue out at Don and tweaked Eowyn's beak.

"Don't leave me alone with this thing!" Don shouted into the mess of noise, his voice was lost in a swirl of sirens, scuffling and yells.

She squirmed as she cried, her plump green cheeks purpled and wet. Her papas little temper showing. Well, not really, he thought as he held her at arm's length and steered awkwardly to the lab to turn off the alarm. Blasting sirens and raging daddies upset any baby, no matter how sweet a temper.

Raph is a daddy. It was like saying the moon was made out of Styrofoam.

Don sat at the computer. Eowyn thrashed in his hands and he flexed his fingers, desperate to escape into the computer. Where to put it. Work bench? No. It might roll off.

Ugh. Baby smell. Like rotten milk. And Raph… Babies shouldn't smell like Raph.

A toy. She needed a toy. Something to jam into her mouth to make her shut up. He scanned the room for the least fatal object. An old sparkplug. He pulled it out from under a pile of old Wired magazines and held it in front of her tear covered face.

"TELL US YOUR NAME!" Leo bellowed. Using his epic voice. Not good.

Don resisted the urge to put Eowyn in her bassinet and join the fun. A fight without him… Maybe he could bring her along in the car seat and leave her a safe distance away. No. Bad idea.

She hiccupped in distress and he watched with fascination as her face slid suddenly from distress to mollified interest. Eowyn banged the sparkplug on his knee and then put it in her mouth. Was it clean? Oh, well. She lived in a sewer and shared a room with Mikey and Raph. She must put dirty things in her mouth all the time.

Baby sat comfortably in his lap as he looked at fail blog videos.

"…MY FUCKING BODY! YOU HAD NO RIGHT TO…"

He nearly watched a video called Metermaid Fail when his brain prompted him to reconsider Raph's outburst. His body? The person who… violated him was somewhere in the tunnels.

Violated… Maybe Raph had been raped. Acid shifted in his stomach. What kind of a being could overpower Raph sexually? And what if Raph had been raped? His brain buzzed. Empty. Too gruesome to imagine. No possibility.

He held Eowyn out at arm's length again and her diaper drooped off her bottom. Probably full. Daddy could take care of that when he got back. Don would feign ignorance. He hadn't had to change a diaper yet and he wasn't about to. He had an intricate plan where he would never change a diaper. He couldn't wait for his niece to grow up so he could talk to her. Teach her things. Show her how to weld and switch out a PSU.

"…I'M GOING TO KILL YOU! YOU TOUCHED…" Touched what? Speak up, Raph! He turned down the computer speakers and craned his neck to eavesdrop.

But the eavesdropping wasn't necessary. A chorus of inarticulate male shouting came closer and in about thirty seconds Don found himself bandaging a stranger wearing a blue blindfold. Don blinked at Leo's naked face as he insistently held his katana point at the stranger's neck. A line of blood ran down the man's neck and into his collar.

"So, Larry Miller," Mikey said, all business and narrowed eyes. "How do we know you're telling the truth about this and…"

"IT DOESN'T MATTER!" Raph said as he elegantly punctuated his point by kicking a trash can.

Eowyn thrashed in fright and leaned backwards. Don nearly dropped her and then felt her peeled out of his arms. Her daddy bounced her in his arms and rubbed her shell in circles, tucking her face into his neck, glaring lasers of death at the intruder. How dichotomous.

"I only know what I was told!" the stranger said, his voice and body shuddering as if submerged in ice water. "They said they needed semen taken from a big turtle. I thought they wanted to break into the zoo! And then I saw that it… you…" he gestured politely at Raph, who growled in response, "…were sentient, but I couldn't do anything. They threatened my family! I had to."

Leo leaned in and said, "Not good enough." The soft whisper of death. "You would blindly hurt someone else to save your own hide? Without knowing the consequences of your actions?"

What?

"Leo," Don said mildly. Poor Leo. So quick to think everyone was against them. "How was he supposed to know that taking semen from a giant turtle was going to hurt somebody? I mean, at most it was… tampering with city property or… molesting an endangered species or something. You make it sound like they wanted him to kill somebody."

Leo's cool glare hardened with brief annoyance. "The foot aren't known for keeping their word."

Don sat down and checked his email notifications out of the corner of his eye, resisting the urge to grab the mouse as he talked. "You said he was saving his own hide. Was he supposed to let them string up his family because he wouldn't jack off a zoo animal? That's pretty harsh."

"I don't care!" Raph said. "It's not important why!"

Don blinked. The power of Raph's statements were really diminished when he changed a naughty and giggling baby's dirty diaper and wiped her backside during his threatening speeches. He wouldn't say anything because it was too funny and he hoped to see it in the future. Don't make him aware of the failure.

Then he noticed that the poop covered baby was lying on the workbench without a blanket. "Raph! Get that stinky thing off the workbench!"

"Fuck you," he muttered as baby kicked and giggled with glee at her grumpy and dangerous daddy.

Larry the hostage said, "You have a very pretty little girl. I have three daughters myself. Mary, Elizabeth and Annabel."

Leo dropped his katana suddenly and Don raised a hand, ready to catch his killing blow. Leo was a machine. His blows came swift and without notice, all but to the trained…

"Elizabeth… I wanted to name Eowyn that…" The sword fell to his side. "But Raph said it was like an old lady name."

"Eowyn. That's… different."

"Hey!" Raph tossed the rolled up dirty diaper like a projectile at the hostage and Don deflected it with his elbow.

Don wasn't very impressed by flying diapers. He saw every object of every variety, shape and size fly out of Raph's hands.

"Who is this guy?" Don asked the room.

Mikey picked up the sparkplug and wiped off the baby slobber, giving him a crooked and knowing smile. "He says he's the one who helped make Eowyn. They took Raph's… uh… baby juice and…"

Leo made a choking noise.

"…and they did it by shooting a tranquilizer at him and then they put this big ass clamp on his junk and pried out his testicles through his…"

"Holy fuck!" Don cried. No other words for it. His 'nads hurt just hearing it. Unlike his brothers, he knew exactly where their testicles were and they weren't near the surface.

And someone had done that to Raph.

"You had better not have known what you were doing," Don said, stepping closer to Larry the hostage.

He held his arms up in surrender and took the katana free moment to bolt to the other side of the room. Don smirked, knowing that they could kill him from anywhere he stood. A trapped lab rat.

"I swear! I'm a veterinarian! I've never seen anything like him!"

He gestured to the remarkable beast, who held his naked baby like a sack of potatoes under his arm and searched around the workbench for a misplaced clean diaper.

"I had to do what they wanted."

Leo stepped up to him, his brown eyes glistening with deathly intent. Leo very badly wanted to cut this guy up. And understandably so. The idea of Raph helpless and sexually violated. Raph was a physical monster. But he was also a frightened little child underneath all the muscle and mouth. And they all knew it. He must have been so scared and alone and ashamed.

Don shook his head, clearing it for more excuses from the hostage. "…they said they wanted me to make a baby. I didn't know what to do. I mean, they didn't give me any instruction. I was told that you are a red eared slider. So I got a sample from a pet store, sorted out the females and extracted DNA samples. I looked at your DNA too. Really fascinating stuff. You're a miracle of science, Raphael."

The miracle of science diapered his wiggling baby with one arm and sat down heavily on the work bench, full of evil intent. Grunted mildly and pulled a screwdriver out from under his butt cheek. Don wondered if Raph would ever attack someone with his baby in his arms. Probably. "Why'd they do this?" Don asked.

"I don't know. They wouldn't tell me." Leo stepped closer still and Larry trembled like a leaf in a fall breeze.

Don bit his tongue and clamped down on the five hundred questions ready to burst forth.

"I tried to extract the mutagen as they requested, but I couldn't find a way. I think there may be a way, but I'm not scientist. But I did find that if I used the semen untreated that it could produce a viable embryo using one of the red eared slider eggs. That was pretty amazing. I wasn't sure I would get a little red eared slider or a mutant."

Don's heart ached. He knew what this meant. "How many specimens did you produce?"

"Oh, who cares!" Mikey cried, suddenly distressed. Probably because he didn't like the idea of Eowyn, his beloved little niece coming out of foot headquarters. "She's ours now. It doesn't matter where she came from."

"I took twenty specimens." Larry said it cautiously. Didn't want them to figure this out. Didn't want Raph to know.

Don sat down again and sighed heavily. "What happened to them all?"

Raph still didn't understand. "You had not right… You made this thing… And I have to take care of it!" He held Eowyn at him and then whipped her back against his chest. That was an odd gesture. Seemed to keep her face hidden against him. That was new. Shielding her from the stranger as he declared that he didn't want her? Only Raph.

Larry ignored Raph. "Only four were viable. Several others survived past the embryonic stage, but… were found undesirable."

And Leo's katana dug into Larry's neck, his face was blank with impending agony. Preparing himself for Raph's pain.

"Where are the other three?" Don asked softly. "It's okay. It wasn't your fault."

Mikey scoffed a little. It didn't matter whose fault it was at this moment. They needed the information. Fault came later.

Larry rallied himself and took a risky deep breath that cost him another cut.

Raph snapped a sleeper on his little daughter and didn't listen or else didn't understand. Don looked for any sharp objects within his reach. "Raph?" he asked. "Can I hold her?"

He wrinkled his face with annoyance at his interruption and tossed the baby into his arms. "Yeah, she needs more clothes. Growing like we're feeding her Miracle Grow."

"The first two viable fetuses survived a month after their so-called births. Two girls. Both lighter colored than the fourth here. And identical twins. What are the odds of that? They hatched out of the same egg." Larry's smiled. An experiment gone much better than planned.

Raph's head cocked to the side, understanding settling in.

"And the third was a boy. I don't know what happened to it. The third and fourth specimens thrived. I was so surprised."

Raph blinked. No real reaction. Didn't hit him yet. He'd had three daughters and a son and two daughters were dead now. The son was… who knows. Dead too.

"They wanted to use them for experiments. To learn how to demutate them. I was given plans… um…" He glanced up at Leo's wet eyes.

"You have more babies," Mikey said his hands limp at his sides. Not fidgeting for a change.

Don's brain spun at breakneck speed, "Wait! Twenty specimens! What happened to the other seventeen and why is Eowyn here and the boy isn't? What happened to the twins? Why didn't they live?"

Leo's sword slipped to his side and his eyes fluttered distractedly to Raph, gauging him.

Larry's eyes opened wider with the newfound hope that Leo wouldn't kill the messenger. "They were only red eared sliders with no mutation, so they were given back to the pet shop. Well, two didn't mature."

"That's astoundingly good odds!" Don said. He couldn't help himself. The fact that any of them lasted to birth was remarkable.

"But…" Larry fidgeted and took a step away from Leo, his eyes on the katanas again. "They did show me the plans for the two surviving mutants and… I think the other is probably a loss now. I could only get to one in time. I knew they were going to start experiments the day I left. They showed me some diagrams…"

Don leaned over closer, hungrily devouring all his words.

But he felt a heavy object collide into his arm as it blew past and then Raph was on top of Larry, punching him in the face and screaming wild nonsense. Leo put his arms around Raph's body and pulled him away.

Eowyn squealed with fright.

"I'll find Splinter," Mikey said with a weak voice, choking with tears. Dead babies. Dead nieces and nephew and other little babies of Raph in random pet stores. Don filed it for later. Comfort Mikey. "He's in the tunnels looking for other intruders." He sounded like a soulless robot as he wandered blindly out of the room, oblivious to Raph's primal bellows of rage.

Leo pushed Raph out the door.

The foot cut up Raph's baby. Maybe more than one. Don blinked back his own tears of shock and disgust. Then he backhanded a slap across Larry's face. Don's slap made Larry's nose bleed and sent him into a pile of paint cans.

"We're going to be alone for a while," he said, looking down into Larry's face as he struggled to move away from him, tripping over rolling paint cans. "I expect to hear everything you did in the tiniest detail and don't worry about wasting my time. I have endless patience and no life."

Don grabbed Larry under the arms and shoved him heavily into a seat.

He heard fists on flesh as Raph lashed out blindly at the nearest warm body, pummeling Leo. Didn't need to look out the door to know what was going on. Leo was sitting on him, pinning him down as he roared nonsense at him.

Eowyn cried helplessly on the work bench.

And the grunts and scuffles of aggression stopped. Leo's soft words echoed into the lab and both Don and Larry listened for a few minutes. Then Splinter's words joined the chorus of appeasement.

And Don opened the door, fully knowing what he would see. He shouldn't have.

Raph lay on the floor, crushed with tears and Leo's weight, half lying over him as an impediment, but his arm gripping him in a wishful hug.

And Splinter gripped his walking stick. There was vengeance in their father's heart and Don knew it. This assault on their family couldn't go unpaid.

Raph's drenched face melted into wild confusion, "Baby…" he choked out. He looked around the room.

Leo muttered, "Lab…" His voice was about to break.

Mikey was nowhere to be seen. Probably collapsed in the tunnels somewhere. Dead babies…

He came back in the lab and grabbed his surviving child clumsily and kissed her greedily, blind to the onlookers witnessing his affection. "This… is mine. I'm going away… We're going to leave…"

Don reached out to stop him. It was too late. Too cold. Too dangerous.

"NOBODY FUCKING TOUCHES US!" Pushed her to his chest, almost enough force to smother her with his protection.

And he left the lab, tripping over an extension chord. Leo followed numbly and Don heard the door close behind them.

Splinter entered the room and filled it with his rage. "This will not go unanswered," he said to Larry. "You allowed my grandchildren to die. How did they live? Did they ever know any love at all?"

He shrank under Splinter's power and paced. "I didn't know it at the time. I thought it was a genetic experiment…"

"I don't buy that," Don said, drowning his rage in the softness of his voice. No outburst. This was too important. Make a plan. Vengeance that lasts lifetimes. The calculations formed as he spoke, and he addressed Larry with deceitfully docile eyes. "You rescued Eowyn. Why not the boy? What happened? Did they cut him up? Torture him?"

No answer. Shrank a little. Swallowing his shame to save his skin. "Probably. They had plans… They were… disgusting. Prying off the shell while they were alive. Injecting them with chemicals. Exploring physical weaknesses."

And Don punched him. Knocked him out. Couldn't listen anymore.


End file.
